Free Republic

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...

Suspected Muslim extremists posing as moto-taxi drivers on April 9 killed an evangelist in central Uganda shortly after he preached at a gospel event, sources said. Alfred Kitenga was beaten and stabbed at about 9:30 p.m. along the Northern Bypass in Kawaala, Wakiso District, after he and his wife, Anna Grace Nabirye, were returning home from preaching in the Namungoona area of Kampala, she said. After the couple spent the evening preaching in Namungoona as part of an evangelistic team, four people who identified themselves as motorcycle taxi drivers approached them, saying they were Christians who had attended the event,...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday revealed he had undergone treatment for prostate cancer and delayed releasing the results at the peak of U.S. and Israeli military operations against Iran earlier this year. In a post on the social platform X, Netanyahu said doctors had discovered a malignant tumor at a “very early stage” and that it had not spread “whatsoever.” He said he chose to have “targeted treatment” against the tumor, which required a “few short” follow-up treatments. “Today, my annual medical report was published. I requested to delay its publication by two months so that it would...

The White House is considering punishing European countries that have failed to assist Donald Trump wage his war in Iran, according to an official within the Pentagon. Keir Starmer, once described as “very nice”, is now routinely said by the US president to be a “coward” and “no Churchill”. It is claimed that Trump could go further and withdraw American support for Britain’s sovereignty of the Falkland Islands over which the UK and Argentina went to war in 1982. The proposal is said to be contained in an internal Pentagon email.

Since the start of Israel’s most recent war with Lebanon, the Lebanese state has blamed Hezbollah for plunging the country into war at Iran’s behest. It now seems inclined to pursue a definitive solution to the problem. In initiating direct talks with Israel, Lebanon is hoping not only to end conflict with Israel but also to eliminate the threat Hezbollah wields inside the country.

Donald Trump has eight days before he will be forced to make up his mind on Iran. He wants to end the unpopular war, but claimed on Thursday he was under “no time pressure” to do so. In fact, the US president is bound by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits his ability to wage war without congressional approval to 60 days. That deadline passes on May 1, 60 days after his formal notification of the war to Congress on March 2. It will compel him to choose one of four options – seek congressional authorisation to continue the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin could travel to the G20 summit in Miami in December, the Kremlin said on Friday after U.S. President ​Donald Trump suggested it would be very helpful if he did attend and that it had been a mistake to expel Russia from the G8. The United States has invited Russia to the annual meeting of Group of 20 countries that Washington is holding this year in Miami, and Moscow has accepted the invitation, a U.S. official familiar with the matter said on Friday. Putin has not attended a G20 summit since 2019 due to the COVID pandemic...

BEIJING: China's Commerce Ministry said on Friday (Apr 24) it was banning exports of dual-use items to seven European entities over arms sales to Taiwan, placing them immediately on its export control list, in a rare case of Europe-targeted, Taiwan-related sanctions. The entities, including German defence electronics firm Hensoldt and Belgian-based defence and sporting arms manufacturer FN Browning, have participated in arms sales to Taiwan or "colluded with Taiwan", a commerce ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The US State Department said it is offering a reward of up to $10 million for information on Hashim Finyan Rahim al-Saraji, leader of the Iran-aligned militia Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada (KSS). In a notice issued through its Rewards for Justice program, the department said al-Saraji, also known as Abu Ala al-Wala’i, heads the group, which it accused of attacks on US personnel and facilities in Iraq and Syria, as well as violence against Iraqi civilians. The notice said individuals providing information could be eligible for relocation and financial compensation. Help stop the violence and attacks against U.S. diplomatic facilities and...

There are now three United States Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carriers operating in the U.S. Central Command's area of responsibility. CENTCOM confirmed in a post on X on Thursday afternoon that the 10th and final Nimitz-class supercarrier, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN-77), has entered the Indian Ocean. CVN-77 joins the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN-72), which is now in the Arabian Sea, and the U.S. Navy's newest and largest supercarrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), operating in the Red Sea after transiting the Suez Canal from the Mediterranean.

A useful rule of thumb is that when a problem persists for decades despite serious effort, the failure is usually not one of effort or intelligence, but of framing. Climate change sits squarely in this category. We have poured talent, capital, policy, and good intentions into solving it, and yet the core dynamics continue to worsen. This suggests that something foundational is off in how we are thinking about the problem. One of the clearest illustrations of that deeper issue sits far from financial centers and climate summits, in the Arctic. About 50 years ago, Denmark made a decision that...

A small group in the House of Lords has proposed hundreds of amendments that are helping stymie a bill that was meant to legalize medically assisted death for the terminally ill. Six hundred and eighty-eight. That is the number of amendments that just seven members of Britain’s House of Lords have proposed to a bill that was meant to legalize assisted dying for the terminally ill. So many amendments have been lodged — more than 1,280 in total — that the bill now seems doomed to fail, in a rare example of the Lords, Parliament’s unelected second chamber, blocking a...

Britain's King Charles heads to the United States next week for the most high-profile trip of his reign so far, on a mission to shore up the future of the two allies' "special relationship" which the Iran war has plunged to its lowest point in ‌70 years. The state visit marks the 250th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of independence from British rule, when the then 13 American colonies decided to split from King ‌George III, Charles's five-times-great-grandfather. For Charles, it will be a moment to reflect on how Britain and the United States have come together since then to...

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has declared that Anzac Day is so “sacred” that his prosecution for war crime-related murder won’t stop him attending the public commemorations on Saturday. In a move that threatens to overshadow the 111th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, a day of solemn remembrance for Australians, Mr Roberts-Smith will front an Anzac Day event in Queensland and defy reported calls by some of his supporters to boycott the annual services and marches. This follows intervention by the doyen of Australia’s four living VC holders, Vietnam War hero Keith Payne, to back the former SAS operator’s right...