Free Republic

Venezuela’s Cardón refinery — the country’s second-largest plant — was fully halted on Tuesday after a gas-line fire and explosions at its diesel hydrotreater. The blaze was brought under control in under an hour with no reported injuries, but PDVSA has not issued a damage assessment or restart timeline. The outage hits an already fragile domestic fuel system far more than U.S. supply. Cardón (sometimes rendered Cardon; the query’s “Ardon” matches this plant, not neighboring Amuay) sits at Punto Fijo in Falcón state and is half of the Paraguaná Refining Center. A social-media video posted by OSINTtechnical showed a large...

A 15-year-old supporter of Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party was arrested in Britain after he made jokes about a local Conservative Party politician online. The schoolboy, only referred to as Fraser, was arrested by four officers from the West Midlands Police at his home in the early hours of August 3rd. He was taken from his family home and searched in front of his neighbours, locked in a cell, fingerprinted, had a mugshot taken, and had a sample of his DNA taken. Meanwhile, two officers searched his bedroom, and he was pressured to hand over his phone for other officers...

Ila Belov, 22, hit the girl during a clash and attempted to play the victim. He was nailed three months ago for the terrifying assault in Dundee, when the girl was aged 12. But his sentencing was delayed again and blamed on issues with social workers. His victim’s mother, who can’t be named, said: “I’m absolutely raging. “This is just a joke. It’s just piling the stress and the pressure on my daughter. “He’s walking about with a smug grin on his face while she’s too scared to go anywhere. “This needs to be dealt with so we can move...

We’re in a war between savages and civilization. Everything else is a detail. (The following is the first article I wrote after the Islamic massacres of Oct 7.) Savages We’re in a war between savages and civilization. Everything else is a detail. Some of us woke up to that war when planes crashed into skyscrapers. Others when we saw beheading videos spread across social media. What we saw in Israel, Hamas terrorists raping, mutilating and defiling corpses, is another bloody wake-up call. There will be many others. Beyond the politics and the geopolitics, we still haven’t come to terms with...

France is on the precipice of a dangerous financial spiral. The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once considered an oasis of relative stability in Europe’s financial markets, as one of the continent’s weakest links. France now pays more to borrow than former crisis hot spots like Greece and Italy. Its government is running a budget deficit surpassed only by the United States among its peers. Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took an alarming turn as it spread across the continent, reviving memories of the eurozone debt crisis last decade. France’s 10-year...

Video posted by government forces in Yemen showed them driving armoured cars over Houthi ⁠fighters ⁠as they recaptured areas around the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait from ⁠the Iran-backed group on Monday in a deadly new phase of the fragmented country's war. The videos gave a glimpse into the brutal closing stages ​of a pitched battle for control of territory near the strait that the Houthis had captured last month. The Houthi advance sent shockwaves through the oil market and pushed up petrol and diesel prices worldwide. Fighting continued near Bab el-Mandeb ‌on Tuesday as Saudi-backed government forces battled to consolidate...

The situation in France appeared to be escalating Monday as viral video showed a burning school with staff, students, and journalists barricaded inside. The scene, ripped right from the medieval crusades or the Jacobins’ 18th-century Reign of Terror, occurred at Nicolas Louis Vauquelin vocational high school, located in the 13th Arrondissement in southeast Paris. The spot is roughly three miles from tourist-heavy spots like the Notre Dame Cathedral, which itself was reopened in December 2024 after six years of restoration following a devastating fire, reportedly caused by an electrical short-circuit or discarded cigarette. It was not immediately apparent whether the...

Israel's Consul-General in New York, Ofir Akunis, invited New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Monday evening to view the 47-minute film documenting the October 7 massacre, which will be screened in New York to mark three years since the attack. Akunis extended the invitation to Mamdani during a memorial ceremony held by the Israeli Consulate in the city, attended by some 1,000 people, and simultaneously sent him a formal letter. "In less than 48 hours, on October 7, we will screen in New York City the 47-minute atrocity film produced by the IDF," Akunis said in his speech. "I invite...

One post, "time for mass deportation," paired with a caption about a supposed "12-year-old Mohammed" who wanted donors to move him from a three-star hotel to a five-star hotel with a better halal menu, free Wi-Fi, Sky, and a location nearer a girls' school, was treated as politics. The judge said it concerned an issue already debated in Parliament and acquitted Gray. The second post was the one that counted. It showed a rasher of bacon next to a man in a turban, with the caption: "Fun facts about bacon! People who eat bacon have a lower chance of marrying...

California Democrats slammed Donald Trump after he joked the US should let Iran 'take out' Los Angeles and San Diego at a rally in Nebraska on Monday. The President campaigned in Grand Island alongside GOP Senator Pete Ricketts, who is running against an independent candidate backed by national Democrats. Trump was defending the Iran War and explaining that higher gas prices - which he hopes to lower with an Executive Order ⁠expanding ​access to tax-exempt ​diesel - are a small price to pay to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon. 'And again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial....

Regardless of why Putin might have held off on this for so long, he’s now arguably motivated at least in part by the tantalizing possibility of reaching big-ticket resource deals with the US after the conflict ends, the details of which his and Trump’s envoys have been negotiating for over a year already. The New York Times cited allegedly intercepted Russian communications to report that Russia plans to obliterate Ukraine’s power, heating, and water systems this winter. While their claim can’t be confirmed, it aligns with Putin mildly “escalating to de-escalate” over the summer in response to Zelensky’s strike campaign,...

On Sunday, 4 October, Dmitry Medvedev threatened Armenia, saying that it “could transform into a second Ukraine”. This refers to the Armenians’ aspirations for closer ties with the European Union, which do not please Russia, as it wishes to keep Armenia within its sphere of influence. On Sunday, 4 October, Dmitry Medvedev gave an interview to Iranian state television. In it, he stated that the West is testing the “strength of the relationship” connecting Armenia and Russia, warning Yerevan against changing its political course. “The current Armenian authorities have decided to change direction. I am certain that this will not...

Sailors are reportedly being offered as much as $25,000 a trip to move trapped oil through the dangerous, war-rattled Persian Gulf – meaning producers are spending up to $40 million total for a multi-day trip... The jaw-dropping payments – sometimes worth two or three times a sailor’s typical monthly salary – are an attempt to convince crew members to risk the potentially deadly strikes... Fresh data on Monday showed the payouts are working, as crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz reached 16.5 million barrels per day in September – far above lows of 5 million barrels a day in...

Embassy of Poland U.S. @PolishEmbassyUS: Letter from CdA a.i. @BogdanKlich calling on @TuckerCarlson to publicly retract his outrageous statements and apologize for insulting Poles, British citizens, and, ultimately, the memory of the victims of the Shoah and all those who died in the fight against Nazism.

On Monday, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that the United States will help Russia after a laboratory worker died at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute in Siberia.While local media alleged the 28-year-old lab technician died from pneumonic plague, Russian officials stated postmortem tests found only 'pneumonia of undetermined aetiology' with no evidence of occupational pathogens.Authorities placed at least one hospital in Shelekhov under quarantine, with nearly 200 people under medical observation after potential exposure to the worker.U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the nation is monitoring closely and sees no 'cause for alarm,' while experts...

In a major upset for the ruling Coalition Avenir Québec (CAQ) party, the Parti Québécois (PQ) is shaking up the political landscape in Quebec. The party hasn’t been in power since 2014 and its leader, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, has vowed to hold a third referendum on Quebec sovereignty in his first term.

The Justice Department is seeking to revoke the U.S. citizenship of two China-born men convicted in separate cases of working for the Chinese communist regime. The department filed a denaturalization case—seeking to revoke naturalized U.S. citizenship—against former U.S. Navy sailor Wei Jinchao in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California on Sept. 30 and a complaint against Florida technology worker Li Ping in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida on Oct. 1, according to an Oct. 5 Justice Department announcement. The two cases are among 40 denaturalization actions the Justice Department said it...

After years of overspending, the country has emerged as one of Europe’s weakest links. Investors are bracing for things to get worse.France is on the precipice of a dangerous financial spiral.The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once considered an oasis of relative stability in Europe’s financial markets, as one of the continent’s weakest links. France now pays more to borrow than former crisis hot spots like Greece and Italy. Its government is running a budget deficit surpassed only by the United States among its peers. Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took...

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell announced that Hasan will be just the second person since 2010 to be put to death by a firing squad Monday. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009,' he wrote on social media. 'He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting 'Allahu Akbar' during the attack,' Parnell added. 'The Secretary of the Army will set the time and...

The United States wants a reactor on the moon by 2030. A Russian-Chinese alliance is working on one for 2036. Some leading scientists say the danger is great.In late August, NASA asked contractors to prepare to build a nuclear reactor that could survive a space voyage and run without maintenance near the moon’s south pole. That may sound like science fiction, but the agency wants it ready to be launched by December 2030.There is a reason for the rush. Russia aims to have a lunar reactor running by 2036 as part of a secretive partnership with China. NASA has already...