Free Republic

Al-Arabiya reports that military aircraft, believed to likely be Israeli, are currently flying over Southern Syria.

UK warns of rising military threats in Gulf waters as US authorizes evacuation of embassy staff in Iraq, Bahrain and Kuwait amid fears of imminent escalation with Iran. Tensions are mounting across the Middle East amid the reported nearing conclusion of nuclear negotiations, prompting a wave of security alerts and diplomatic movements. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a British maritime security agency, issued an unusual warning Wednesday, citing “increasing regional tension” that could escalate military activity and pose direct threats to seafarers in the Persian Gulf and surrounding waters. Shortly after the UKMTO alert, Reuters reported that the United...

The world's largest group of oil producers, OPEC+, stuck to its guns on Saturday with another big increase of 411,000 barrels per day for July as it looks to wrestle back market share and punish over-producers.Having spent years curbing production - more than 5 million barrels a day (bpd) or 5% of world demand - eight OPEC+ countries made a modest output increase in April before tripling it for May, June and now July.They are spurring production despite the extra supply weighing on crude prices as group leaders Saudi Arabia and Russia seek to win back market share as well...

Russia - Masque Of The Red Death Vladimir Putin has been hailed perhaps as the pivotal post cold war Russian leader. He has executed a skillful dog and pony show, convincing both the Bush and Blair administrations that the former Soviet Union was not only no longer a military threat to the West but was indeed now becoming a close ally. Obviously Russia's cooperation with the French and German UN delegation's intransigence in dealing with Iraq has done much to throw cold water on this heretofore-budding union. It's important to note that such a relationship offered hope, though ultimately unfounded,...

Iran has ordered thousands of tons of ballistic missile materials from communist China, raising new concerns about the regime’s intentions and its growing alliance with America’s adversaries. This development comes amid tense negotiations with the Trump administration over the future of Iran’s nuclear program, as the regime works to rebuild its military capabilities. According to a Wall Street Journal report, shipments of ammonium perchlorate are expected to arrive in Iran within the next several months. An Iranian company, Pishgaman Tejarat Rafi Novin Co., recently placed the order for this missile component, with the material sourced from Hong Kong-based Lion Commodities...

'He has a monstrous gift of bulls**t,' former colleague says. Republican Rep. Cory Mills of Florida built his political career with stories of heroism in the U.S. Army and as a private military operative, but several former colleagues say he exaggerated or lied about being “blown up” twice in Iraq, being an Army Ranger, training as an 18 Delta Special Forces Medical Sergeant, being a military-trained sniper, and saving the lives of two soldiers wounded by enemy fire. They also allege he walked away from his post in Iraq when his employer asked him to verify his service record. As...

As Israel continues to wage a defensive war against the terrorists who invaded and slaughtered hundreds of Jews on October 7, the Jewish State is under attack as never before in the West. I found this out for myself when I was invited on to Piers Morgan Uncensored to discuss the situation in Gaza.What my appearance and censorship on the ironically named “Uncensored” show demonstrated was a refusal, perhaps even a fear, to hear the reality, the facts and the law when it comes to the war against Hamas. This is in stark contrast to…As Israel continues to wage a...

The Shatt al-Arab floodplain outside of Basra is marked with thousands of manmade earthen ridges and canals. Archaeologists have long suspected that these may have been part of an ancient agricultural system, but they did not know when or by whom it was built. New research has demonstrated that not only is this theory true, but that the massive infrastructure was dug by a huge labor force of enslaved Africans. The Associated Press reports that researchers identified more than 7,000 features spread across 300 square miles that formed an extensive farming network. Using radiocarbon dating and a technique called optically...

..... IDF Spokesperson (Res.) Doron Spielman is joined by Major Amiad Cohen, Senior Director of the Herut Center and a reservist who just returned from Israel’s northern border. Together, they expose how Israel’s new military and humanitarian tactics are splitting the Gazan population from Hamas, destabilizing the terror regime’s power base and reshaping the battlefield. Backed by tribal militias fed up with Hamas rule, and no longer relying on international NGOs that Hamas exploits, Israel is asserting direct control of aid distribution—delivering over 1 million meals in one week alone. This discussion covers why Hamas profited billions from stolen humanitarian...

SummaryEight OPEC+ members met online OPEC+ cites steady economic outlook, healthy fundamentals Started unwinding output cuts in April For more detail on OPEC+ unwinding its cuts, see Explainer LONDON/MOSCOW, May 31 (Reuters) - The world’s largest group of oil producers, OPEC+, stuck to its guns on Saturday with another big increase of 411,000 barrels per day for July as it looks to wrestle back market share and punish over-producers. Having spent years curbing production - more than 5 million barrels a day (bpd) or 5% of world demand - eight OPEC+ countries made an modest output increase in April before...

The following is an excerpt of the book description written for The National Security Constitution in the 21st Century which Professor Harold Hongju Koh published on June 25, 2024.If re-elected, could President Trump, by a single tweet, withdraw America from the United Nations, NATO, and every treaty and international organization to which the U.S. belongs? Or if re-elected, could President Biden gradually take us to war throughout the Mideast—Gaza, Yemen, Iran, the Red Sea—by supplying weapons and ordering drone strikes, cybercommands and Special Forces without congressional approval?SNIPThis increasing imbalance of foreign affairs power has intensified across recent administrations of both...

Russian politician, Deputy State Duma Chairman Vladimir Zhirinovsky provoked a diplomatic scandal which resulted in worsening the relations between Russia and Latvia. On March 24 Mr. Zhirinovsky expressed criticism to Latvia"s joining NATO and the reform of Russian language schools in an interview to Latvian TV. Zhirinovsky predicted terrorist attacks on Latvia and said, "Latvia will be destroyed. Empty space will be there. Absolutely nothing will remain from Latvia. Everybody will forget the words "Latvia" and "the Latvian language". There will be nothing in Latvia, forever. We will destroy everything. If you touch Russians and Russian schools. I assure you....

And how Trump shattered the Establishment’s manufactured consent. There was a moment in the late spring of 2015 when I realized that the ground beneath our feet was shifting. During an appearance on Fox News, Charles Krauthammer was asked to predict the Republican and Democrat nominees for the 2016 election. He said rather confidently that the nominees would be “Jeb” Bush and Hillary Clinton. When asked to explain his reasoning, Dr. Krauthammer pointed out that Bush and Clinton had the money, the political infrastructure, and the backing of their respective party elites. I found his predictions unsettling — partly because...

Briton 'shot dead' in Amman Monday September 4, 2006 A gunman has killed a British man and injured five western tourists and a local guide, at a Roman amphitheatre in Amman, according to the Jordanian government. Reuters is reporting that the gunman chanted as he fired at the tourists visiting the popular site, which is in the centre of the Jordanian capital. Nasser Joudeh, from the Jordanian government, said the wounded were three Britons, one Dutch, one New Zealander and the Jordanian guide Jordanian police have cordoned off the site. "I was walking when I saw someone pull out a...

A gunman opened fire on tourists at the Roman Amphitheater in Jordan's capital on Monday, killing a British man and wounding six other people, including a police officer, officials said. Interior Minister Eid al-Fayez said a British man was killed, while two British women, a Dutch man, an Australian woman, a New Zealand woman and a police officer were injured. The man, clean-shaven and appearing to be his mid-30s, shouted "God is great!" before firing several shots at them, said an Iraqi witness, Mohammad Jawad Ali. The worst attack, a triple suicide bombing at hotels in Amman in November, killed...

A massive explosion occurred overnight Thursday at a military warehouse on the outskirts of the Jordanian city of Zarqa, Arab News reported. The installation, east of the city, contained idle mortar bombs belonging to the armed forces, said Amjad Adaileh, minister of state for media affairs. The Jordanian Army said that an explosion occurred in one of the munitions depots under dismantling. The fire was caused by an electrical short circuit. "According to the Armed Forces headquarters, until this moment, no injuries were recorded as a result of the explosion," Adaileh said. The installation is located away from civilian areas...

King Abdullah II called for a global fight against terrorism yesterday as Jordan acknowledged for the first time that al Qaeda in Iraq used foreign suicide bombers to attack Amman hotels, killing 57.

Syria’s new government will relocate ISIS families from camps, with Kurdish and US support. The new Syrian transitional government is seeking to find a way to deal with thousands of ISIS families who have been housed at camps in eastern Syria since ISIS was defeated in Syria in 2019. When ISIS was defeated in several villages near the Euphrates River in 2019, some of the terrorist group chose to surrender, and thousands of families of ISIS fighters ended up in the hands of the US-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The thousands of families were sent to several camps and detention facilities...

In what can be called a victory speech over failed neoconservative foreign policy, President Donald Trump proclaimed the end of 30-some years of existing foreign policy in the Mideast. The ideology dragged the U.S. through pointless wars from Libya to Yemen is now dead. At an investment conference in Riyadh, in a speech little-commented on by the mainstream media, Trump said, “In the end, the so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built. And the interventionalists [sic] were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand.” For the first time since the First Gulf War in...

The Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq has formalized two major energy agreements with U.S. firms HKN Energy and WesternZagros in Washington, D.C., Kurdish media reported on Monday, in deals valued at a combined $110 billion, despite a legal showdown with the federal government of Iraq over control of the country’s oil exports... ...The deals were formalized during KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani's official visit to the United States this week... ...Washington has been advocating for the resumption of Kurdish oil exports, which have been stalled since March 2023 due to legal disputes and pipeline shutdowns. Washington's push aims...