Free Republic

April 15 (Reuters) - China has told Danish shipping group Maersk (MAERSKb.CO), opens new tab and Switzerland-based Mediterranean ​Shipping Company (MSC Shipping) to cease operating ports ‌on the Panama Canal, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday. In a meeting with China's state planner last month, ​Maersk and MSC Shipping were told to ​withdraw from the Balboa and Cristóbal ports ⁠immediately, the report said, citing two people ​familiar with the talks. Maersk and MSC were told not to "engage ​in illegal activities that harm the interests of Chinese companies, ‌and ⁠to uphold commercial ethics and international rules," the report said. Panama...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has signed a new law criminalizing antisemitism and making it punishable by up to eight years in prison. The new law – signed on Holocaust Remembrance Day – amends Article 161 of the Criminal Code on the violation of citizens’ equality based on their race, nationality, religious beliefs, or disability. This now features the words and “manifestations of antisemitism,” according to the draft law seen by The Jerusalem Post. Part one of the article relates to deliberate actions aimed at inciting hatred or manifestations of antisemitism and at humiliation of honor and dignity. Incitement to antisemitism...

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that Israel and Lebanon have agreed to a 10-day ceasefire. “I just had excellent conversations with the Highly Respected President Joseph Aoun, of Lebanon, and Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu, of Israel. These two Leaders have agreed that in order to achieve PEACE between their Countries, they will formally begin a 10 Day CEASEFIRE at 5 P.M. EST,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “On Tuesday, the two Countries met for the first time in 34 years here in Washington, D.C., with our Great Secretary of State, Marco Rubio. I have directed Vice President JD Vance and...

President Donald Trump on April 14 directly addressed Pope Leo XIV in another Truth Social post, drawing attention to the Iranian regime’s reported killing of thousands of protesters in the past two months. “Will someone please tell Pope Leo that Iran has killed at least 42,000 innocent, completely unarmed, protesters in the last two months, and that for Iran to have a Nuclear Bomb is absolutely unacceptable,” he wrote.Protests in Iran erupted in late December 2025 over economic hardships and quickly turned into broader anti-government demonstrations, Zeale News previously reported. Iranian security forces reportedly responded with live ammunition against the...

On Friday Nigel Farage sought to minimise his personal relationship with Trump. “I happen to know him, but that’s by the by,” said the Reform UK leader. Farage told the FT the bilateral partnership was “our most important relationship in the world . . . whether it’s [Joe] Biden in the White House or Trump.” Last year he said he hoped to become prime minister “quickly while Donald Trump is still in office.” Lord David Frost, the UK’s former Brexit negotiator, made an even more dramatic shift this week. The Conservative peer, who once welcomed Trump’s re-election as the “first...

Perhaps, and we'll get to an answer – or at least an argument for it – shortly. The better question created by the last two pontificates is this: Has the Catholic Church abandoned St. Thomas Aquinas' deeply considered and scripturally rooted "Just War Doctrine" in exchange for flabby and fashionable pacifism dressed up as Christianity? We can address both questions without indulging in ad hominems and invective, I assure you, even when public officials (such as President Trump) can't restrain their frustration enough to keep the debate on point. The second question matters more than the first, especially in a...

Israel has struck hard against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon, and this time they made it personal; they didn't go after weapons caches or logistics, instead targeting Hezbollah's members and leaders directly, in an attack that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has done more damage than the famous 2024 pager attacks. That's serious stuff.Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group, saw its command structure across Lebanon come under what Israeli officials described as one of the most devastating blows of the war April 8.Nearly simultaneously, explosions tore through Beirut, Lebanon, the Beqaa Valley and southern Lebanon as roughly 50 Israeli aircraft struck more...

Files hidden in satellite TV broadcasts keep information flowing.On 8 January 2026, the Iranian government imposed a near-total communications shutdown. It was the country’s first full information blackout: For weeks, the internet was off across all provinces while services including the government-run intranet, VPNs, text messaging, mobile calls, and even landlines were severely throttled. It was an unprecedented lockdown that left more than 90 million people cut off not only from the world, but from one another. Since then, connectivity has never fully returned. Following U.S. and Israeli airstrikes in late February, Iran again imposed near-total restrictions, and people inside...

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the constitutionality of President Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship as we have known it. The court’s eventual opinion in the case, Trump v. Barbara, will almost certainly hinge on how the justices interpret the 14th Amendment’s Citizenship Clause, which says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside.” The court will probably also respond to the first words of the president’s March 19 brief, which asserts that...

Iran used the satellite to monitor major U.S. military sites. Satellite imagery was taken in March prior to drone and missile strikes on the sites. Iran secretly purchased a spy satellite from China in 2024, which it then used to target U.S. bases. According to the Financial Times, Earth Eye Co, a Chinese company, built and launched a TEE-01B satellite in 2024. After it was launched into space from China, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Aerospace Corp purchased the satellite, leaked Iranian military documents show. Iran used the satellite to monitor major U.S. military sites. Satellite imagery was taken in...

When Australian Army private Robert Poate was gunned down in 2012 by a rogue Afghan soldier inside what should have been a safe patrol base, within 20 minutes Ben Roberts-Smith was on the scene with his small SAS team. Too late to save Poate and the two other Australians murdered by Hekmatullah, the war hero was sent out to hunt the Afghan down. Elevated to the top of the Joint Priorities Effects List, this terrorist could be killed whether armed or not. If the war in Afghanistan taught our soldiers anything it was that the line between friend and foe...

LABOUR has sparked fury by allowing a major Falklands oil field to go ahead — while holding back drilling in the North Sea. The massive Sea Lion development was approved by the Falkland Islands Government late last year, allowing it to move to full production. It is understood it would never be sanctioned without UK backing. The field holds hundreds of millions of barrels of oil and could keep pumping for decades. Key equipment is set to be built in UK hubs including Aberdeen, Newcastle and Rosyth. Island chiefs said the scheme will support the Falklands’ “economic independence”.

Iran is digging out its underground missile bases during the ceasefire with the US and Israel, satellite imagery suggests.Heavy machinery has been seen clearing debris from blocked tunnels, scooping up rubble and loading it into nearby trucks.Those entrances were deliberately targeted in earlier strikes by the US and Israel, as part of a strategy aimed at trapping missile launchers underground.One satellite image taken on April 10 shows a front-end loader on a mound of debris that was sealing a tunnel entrance, with several dumper trucks waiting nearby at a missile base near Khomeyn, Iran.

Mediators moved closer Wednesday to extending the ceasefire between the United States and Iran and restarting negotiations to salvage the fragile truce before it expires next week. A senior Iranian military official threatened to halt trade in the region if the U.S. does not lift its naval blockade, underscoring tensions that are overshadowing the diplomacy. The U.S. blockade on Iranian ports and renewed Iranian threats have imperiled the week-old agreement, but regional officials said Wednesday they were making progress, telling The Associated Press that the United States and Iran had given an “in principle agreement” to extend it to allow...

The issue is no longer whether the regime in Tehran is under strain — it clearly is — but whether Washington is preparing, consciously or not, to replace a brutal clerical dictatorship with a brutal military one. The idea that a military structure could serve as a "moderate" transitional governing authority in Iran seems to rest on the fragile assumption that professionalism leads to moderation. Regional history says otherwise. From Egypt to Pakistan, militaries that stepped in to "restore order" entrenched their own authoritarian rule. Iran offers no reason to believe it would be different.

The largest oil shock in history caused prices to surge. Now they're so high that they may be causing "demand destruction." That would mean slower economic growth. Oil prices have started to slip — but not necessarily for reasons that suggest a return to market normalcy. The International Energy Agency said Tuesday that “demand destruction” has begun to unfold. As a result of the acute energy commodity shortages stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, oil appears to have reached a point where it is now so expensive that overseas businesses and households have begun curbing investment and...

Iran’s barbaric regime is set to execute its first female protester over recent protests, one of an estimated 1,600 sentenced to death by the Islamic Republic in the past year. Bita Hemmati is the first woman due to be hanged in relation to the demonstrations that broke out in January across the country and were viciously stamped out by government forces. The regime accused her of numerous charges, including using explosives and weapons, throwing objects such as concrete blocks, participating in protest gatherings, and disrupting national security, according to a Tuesday press release from the opposition National Council of Resistance...

🚨 WOW. Border Czar Tom Homan just gave the PERFECT response to Pope Leo "I'm a lifelong Catholic. I wish they'd STAY OUT of immigration, they don't know what they're talking about." "Because if they wore my shoes for 40 years, and talked to a 9-year-old girl that got r*ped multiple times, or stood in the back of a tractor trailer with 19 dead aliens at my feet, including a 5-year-old boy that baked to death, if they understood the atrocities that happened on the open border, I think their opinion would change!" "And I welcome discussion with any of...

President Trump said that China has agreed not to send weapons to Iran amid reports it plans to give Tehran new air defense systems — and predicted Chinese leader Xi Jinping “will give me a big, fat, hug” when they meet next month. Trump further claimed Wednesday that Xi is “very happy” about his efforts to open the Strait of Hormuz, a day after officials in China slammed his blockade as “dangerous and irresponsible.” “China is very happy that I am permanently opening the Strait of Hormuz. I am doing it for them, also — And the World,” Trump crowed...

A shadow industry of law firms and advisers is charging thousands of pounds to help migrants pretend to be gay in order to stay in the UK, the BBC has found. In the first part of a major undercover investigation, we reveal how migrants whose visas are due to run out are being given fake cover stories and instructed in how to obtain fabricated evidence, including supporting letters, photographs and medical reports. They then apply for asylum claiming to be gay and in fear for their lives if they return to Pakistan or Bangladesh.In response to our findings, the Home...