Free Republic

Russia’s war in Ukraine has dominated the world’s attention since it began on Feb. 24, 2022. Western governments and journalists alike provided a constant flow of information and updates as the war unfolded, documenting every war crime, military gain, and loss. Leaders kept alive the unwavering support for Kyiv’s fight for its freedom. That all changed on Oct. 7 when Hamas launched its brutal attack on Israel. The world’s focus switched in an instant to a war that grows more dire with each passing day as thousands are killed, with no end in sight. “We just got enough attention of...

The security cabinet approved regulations that would allow the government to close foreign broadcasters who broadcasts harm national security, KAN reported early Monday morning. The decision comes as Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi pushes for the Qatari Al-Jazeera and Lebanese Al-Mayadeen networks in Israel to be closed.

Washington -- US President Joe Biden has said that he is convinced that one of the reasons why Hamas launched a terrorist attack on Israel was because of the recent announcement during the G-20 Summit in New Delhi on the ambitious India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor that integrates the entire region with a network of railroad. Israel has launched a massive counter-offensive against Hamas after unprecedented attacks by the militant group on October 7 killed more than 1,400 people. Biden told reporters at a joint news conference with the visiting Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese that his analysis is based on...

WASHINGTON — President Biden received a $200,000 check in 2018 from his younger brother James on the same day that he received the same amount from a US hospital chain by promising to secure a Mideast investor, bank records obtained by Congress show. “This summer, Joe Biden said: ‘Where’s the money?‘ Well, we found some,” House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) said in a video posted Friday afternoon to X. Comer said James Biden wrote his check to his powerful brother as a “loan repayment,” without providing further context. “Even if this was a personal loan repayment, it’s still...

While the Arab states make a hue and cry about Israel’s wrongdoings in Gaza, they themselves are not doing anything to help Palestinians in distress US Presidential aspirant, Nikki Haley has put the cat amongst the pigeons by asking some straight questions. She stated, “You're going to hear all those Arab countries vilify Israel for what's about to happen. You're going to hear all of them say, how dare you not do more for the Palestinian people?” and then posed bluntly, “But where are the Arab countries? Where are they? Where is Qatar? Where is Lebanon? Where is Jordan? Where...

Screengrab from a video shot as revellers realize Hamas gunmen are attacking. Girls were raped beside the corpses of their friends. In 2021, we were part of a grassroots team which rescued 400 women from Afghanistan. We have all, together and separately, worked on a range of feminist issues including rape, sex trafficking, honor killing, child marriage, and forced veiling. Together with thousands of other women, we have signed countless petitions and resolutions calling for freedom, justice, and safety for women globally. We cannot understand the feminist silence about what is happening to civilian Israelis in general and to Israeli...

President Biden's decision to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to its lowest level in decades is back in the spotlight amid the war between Israel and Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, which has caused oil prices to surge. On Monday, the Brent crude index, the worldwide oil benchmark, and the U.S. WTI index both surged more than 4% and inched closer to $90 a barrel as a result of volatility created by the Middle East crisis. According to analysts, the conflict — triggered over the weekend after a series of unprovoked attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis — may lead...

The US says it has carried out air strikes on facilities in eastern Syria used by groups affiliated with Iran's Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC). President Joe Biden ordered the strikes "to defend and protect US forces" in Syria following several attacks on them blamed on Iran-backed groups. About US 1,000 troops are operating out of the bases, without the permission of the Syrian government, as part of the US-led global coalition against the jihadist group Islamic State (IS). Wednesday's US strikes were conducted by two F-15 and two F-16 jets, military officials told US media. The plan had been...

Outspokenness has always been former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s signature move. Despite having fallen from grace in Iranian political circles he’s still using it, but this time directed against the regime itself. His new status as a de-facto opposition figure has been a long time coming. He began falling out of favour with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei towards the end of his second term as President, over a series of disputes about his cabinet. In 2009, shortly after Ahmadinejad’s election, his Vice President of choice and close friend, Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, was forced to resign on Khamenei’s order. Mashei is a curious...

SANAA, Yemen (AP) — A Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen unleashed a barrage of airstrikes on the capital and a strategic Red Sea city, officials said Saturday. At least seven people were killed. The overnight airstrikes on Sanaa and Hodeida — both held by the Houthis — came a day after the rebels attacked an oil depot in the Saudi city of Jiddah, their highest-profile assault yet on the kingdom. Brig. Gen. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the strikes targeted “sources of threat” to Saudi Arabia, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency...

Doha (AFP) – Germany has committed to "fast track" the construction of two liquefied natural gas terminals as part of a new long-term deal with Qatar as it looks to reduce dependence on Russian gas, the Gulf state said Sunday. Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck secured the accord during talks in Doha with its emir and energy minister who have been pressing European nations to strike long-term deals to guarantee their supplies. European states have been forced to turn to Qatar in recent months as they seek an LNG alternative to Russian gas in the wake of Moscow's invasion of...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Yemen’s Houthi rebels unleashed a barrage of drone and missile strikes on Saudi Arabia that targeted key facilities including natural gas and desalination plants early Sunday, Saudi state-run media reported, temporarily cutting oil production at one site. The pre-dawn salvo marked the latest escalation in the rebels’ attacks on the kingdom as the war in Yemen rages into its eighth year and peace talks stall. The attacks did not cause casualties, the Saudi-led military coalition fighting in Yemen said, but damaged nearby civilian vehicles and homes. In a separate incident, the coalition also said...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Forty-nine of the 50 Republican U.S. senators said on Monday they will not back an emerging new nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, underscoring their party's opposition to attempts to revive a 2015 accord amid fears talks might collapse. They pledged to do everything in their power to reverse an agreement that does not "completely block" Iran's ability to develop a nuclear weapon, constrain its ballistic missile program and "confront Iran's support for terrorism." Tehran denies it has ever sought atomic bombs. Senator Rand Paul was the only Republican member of the Senate who did not sign...

DUBAI (Reuters) - By single-handedly knocking 13% off rocketing oil prices on one day this week, the United Arab Emirates demonstrated the power Gulf producers wield in the market and sent a wake-up call to Washington to pay closer attention to its longtime allies. OPEC heavyweights Saudi Arabia and the UAE, which both bear grudges against Washington, have snubbed U.S. pleas to use their spare output capacity to tame rampant crude prices which threaten global recession after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This was deliberate," Gulf Research Center Chairman Abdulaziz Sager said of the conflicting UAE comments, adding that the message...

VILNIUS, Lithuania (AP) — Ministers from European Union nations under pressure from unauthorized border crossings asked Friday for more action to strengthen and protect the bloc’s external borders as well as for rules to return migrants to their homelands or where they started their journeys. Interior ministers from EU countries including Greece, Poland, Italy, Austria and France — which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency — as well as nonaligned Switzerland and Norway, attended a border security conference in Lithuania’s capital of Vilnius. European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson and the heads of European security bodies like Europol and Frontex,...

More than 40 camels have been disqualified from Saudi Arabia's beauty pageant for receiving Botox injections and other cosmetic enhancements. The contest is a highlight of the King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, where $66m (£45m) in prize money is at stake. Key attributes include long, droopy lips, a big nose and a shapely hump. Judges used "advanced" technology to uncover tampering with camels on a scale not seen before, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported. All contestants were first led into a hall where their external appearance and movements were examined by specialists, it said. Their heads, necks and torsos...

Belarus's leader has threatened to cut off gas supplies to Europe if sanctions are imposed over an escalating migrant crisis at the country's border. Thousands of people are at the border with Poland, enduring freezing conditions in the hope of crossing into the European Union. But on Thursday the country's long-time authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko warned: "If they impose additional sanctions on us... we must respond." "We are heating Europe, and they are threatening us," he said, referring to a Russian gas pipeline that runs through Belarus and into the EU. "And what if we halt natural gas supplies? Therefore,...

BERLIN — The head of Germany’s national labor agency says the country needs significantly more immigrants to plug gaps in the work force as the population ages. Federal Labor Agency Chairman Detlef Scheele said in Tuesday’s edition of the daily newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that he expects the number of working-age people in Europe’s biggest economy to decline by nearly 150,000 this year. “In the coming years, it will be much more dramatic,” the paper quoted him as saying. Scheele said that immigrants would be key — “this is not about asylum, but about targeted immigration for the gaps in the...

VIENNA - The United Nations’ atomic watchdog hasn’t been able to access data important to monitoring Iran’s nuclear program since late February when the Islamic Republic started restricting international inspections of its facilities, the agency said Monday. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported in a confidential document distributed to member countries and seen by The Associated Press that it has “not had access to the data from its online enrichment monitors and electronic seals, or had access to the measurement recordings registered by its installed measurement devices” since Feb. 23. While the IAEA and Iran earlier acknowledged the restrictions limited...

US President Joe Biden has told Israel's prime minister he expects to see a significant de-escalation in its conflict with Hamas today. In what will be seen as Biden's toughest public pressure on the US ally so far, the White House said the president asked Mr Netanyahu in a telephone call to move toward "the path to a cease-fire". However, there remains little sign of a ceasefire between Israel and Gaza after more than a week of cross-border attacks. After Israeli's N12 TV news channel said fighting could end on Thursday morning, a member of Hamas's political bureau, Ezzat El-Reshiq,...