Free Republic

The chief of staff for Israel's Defense Forces said this week Iran is close, just "months" or "weeks" away from developing a nuclear weapon, the Times of Israel reports. "No one has any doubt: Iran hopes, wants, identified, and built the capabilities necessary to be a military nuclear power, and maybe even use them when it decides it wants to," Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi said in a speech to Tel Aviv University's Institute for National Security Studies.

The 20th century saw the development of many weapons that could have ended civilization as we know it, but nothing compares to the potentially devastating power of the Soviet Union‘s epic “Tsar Bomba.” It will be remembered as the most powerful nuclear bomb ever built, and it had a blast that was more powerful than 50 million tons of TNT.

This month, an intercontinental ballistic missile was fired in the general direction of the Hawaiian islands. During its descent a few minutes later, still outside the earth’s atmosphere, it was struck by another missile that destroyed it. With that detonation, the world’s tenuous nuclear balance suddenly threatened to come out of kilter. The danger of atom bombs being used again was already increasing. Now it’s grown once more. The ICBM flying over the Pacific was an American dummy designed to test a new kind of interceptor technology. As it flew, satellites spotted it and alerted an Air Force base in...

Mohsen Fahrizade, Iran's chief military nuclear scientist, has been assassinated, according to Iranian media outlets. He led the "Amad" military program which Israel alleged was researching how to build a nuclear weapon. The program reportedly ended in the early 2000s. BREAKING: Mohsen Fahrizade the architect of Iran's military nuclear program was assassinated in Tehran, Iranian media reports— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) November 27, 2020An Iranian scientist that Israel alleged led the Islamic Republic's military nuclear program before it was disbanded has been killed in a shootout, Iranian state television said.https://t.co/uCgiGMcEN0— The Associated Press (@AP) November 27, 2020As the AP reports:The semiofficial...

As August 6 approaches, how will the mainstream media depict our use of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki 75 years ago? Nevermind that our nation was already stretched to the limits by four years of all-out war with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan and that Truman’s advisors had estimated 400,000 to 800,000 Americans deaths in a ground invasion of Japan. Today an imbroglio persists about the Trump Administration hampering Iran’s nuclear capability, versus the prudence of the Obama Administration enabling them to develop a nuclear facility. The confused and uninformed say that Iran would develop one anyway. The essential information about...

The Atilis Gym in Bellmawr, New Jersey open for business today..... Car-rental company Hertz filing for bankruptcy under Chapter 11 in Delaware today.... Economic advisers to the President see better economic news later this year...... For the first time since a major economic downturn in 2002, Argentina is in default on a loan tonight..... Iran's top military commander says his country has intelligence on US military movements in the Persian Gulf region and far beyond....... A successful test of a laser weapon by the United States........ The US is considering a nuclear weapons test for the first time since 1992.........

The world was a dangerous place before -- and will be after -- the coronavirus pandemic. While Americans debate the proper ongoing response to the virus and argue over the infection's origins, nature and trajectory, they may have tuned out other, often just as scary, news. Many Americans are irate at China for its dishonest and lethal suppression of knowledge about the viral outbreak. But they may forget that China has other huge problems, too. Its overseas brand is tarnished. Importers can never again be sure of the safety or reliability of Chinese exports. They will know only that their...

For the fourth time in recent weeks we have an upwards revision of the number of Americans injured in the Iranian missile strike at the Al-Asad Air Base in Iraq on January 8th. First the number was 11, then it was 34 and then it was 50. But now the number is 64..... The United States lifting sanctions against a unit of a Chinese company COSCO..... The impeachment trial of President Trump rolling forward on Newsdump Friday with a vote to not call any witnesses.... A woman who figured prominently in the House impeachment inquiry is retiring..... The United States...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE - Pope Francis said Tuesday that the latest round of financial scandal at the Vatican is actually a success story, because the situation was revealed thanks to an internal Vatican probe, which he said demonstrates that new controls are working. The pontiff also called both owning and deploying nuclear weapons “immoral,” saying that point should be added to the Catholic catechism, and suggested that it might be time to re-think the veto power wielded by a handful of countries in the United Nations Security Council. His comments came during an airborne news conference on the return...

Peerless Technologies Corp., an Ohio defense and tech company that quietly came to Albuquerque earlier this year, is wrapping up a local expansion that brought around two dozen jobs and hopes for more in the future. The hiring push came as a result of two Air Force contract wins, according to Senior Vice President Julie Clark. One of those deals is an $18.5 million contract for engineering and technical services to support the integration of the B61-12 nuclear bomb, according to the Dayton Business Journal, our sister company. That project is slated for completion in 2024. Peerless has hired around...

Iran is using advanced models of centrifuges to enrich uranium, President Hasan Rouhani confirmed today. The move marks another breach of the 2015 nuclear agreement which lifted economic sanctions against Iran in exchange for strict limits on the country's nuclear program. In 2018, President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) -- a move which Iran says nullified its own obligations. Trump has since reinstated sanctions on Iran. Iran has already taken steps that are in breach of the landmark deal. It started increasing uranium enrichment beyond the purity threshold it...

Next week, Democrats in Congress will have a golden opportunity to take a strong and principled stand against President Trump’s dangerous moves to resurrect the nuclear arms race. So far, Trump has set a treacherous course for U.S. nuclear policy. He is tearing down arms control treaties that were carefully constructed over decades with bipartisan support. He is building new weapons at tremendous cost that will increase nuclear threats to the world. He has impulsively threatened nations (North Korea) with nuclear attack and has pushed others (Iran) to resume nuclear activities that they had ended. Trump has been in office...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) sparred Tuesday night over her proposed “no first use” policy on nuclear weapons during the Democratic debate. In defending the proposed policy, Warren argued for diplomatic and economic solutions to conflict, saying “we should not be asking our military to take on jobs that do not have a military solution.” But Bullock opposed that proposal, saying, “I don’t want to turn around and say, ‘Well, Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.’” Warren is the lead sponsor of the Senate version of a bill that would...

WASHINGTON — A new short documentary film exposes the challenges North Korean Christians have endured in a nation where millions have never even heard the name of Jesus. Despite severely repressive conditions, pastors and scholars are envisioning a new future for the repressed nation. As the State Department's Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom was held just miles away, the film "Humanity Denied: Religious Freedom in North Korea" from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission was shown for the first time at the Senate Dirksen building Thursday. Preceding the film, a panel of experts spoke on the situation in the Far...

President Hassan Rouhani, who normally presents Tehran’s mild-mannered face, called White House policy “mentally retarded.”...A spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation said that one of those deadlines would expire on Thursday, with Iran potentially exceeding a limit imposed under the deal to keep its stockpile of enriched uranium below 300 kg. The IRIB news agency quoted spokesman Behrouz Kamalvindi as saying that after the deadline Iran would speed up its rate of producing the material. Another threshold bars Iran from enriching uranium to a purity beyond 3.67 percent fissile material. It has set a deadline of July 7 after which...

A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry said in a tweet Tuesday that the new U.S. sanctions that target Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other officials close any channel for diplomacy between the two countries "forever."...Trump said the sanctions “will deny the supreme leader and the supreme leader's office and those closely affiliated with him and the office access to key financial resources and support.”

GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham had some tough advice for President Donald Trump on Wednesday should the Iranians make good on new threats to begin large-scale uranium enrichment and attack more tankers in the Persian Gulf — strike back against Tehran’s economic and military assets. “My ‘red line’ is if there’s any more disruption of shipping in the Strait of Hormuz that’s linked to Iran,” the South Carolina Republican said. “Take out their navy, bomb their refineries if there’s any more attacks on American interests. “Go after Iran so that they’ll…feel pain,” he continued. “I’m not talking about invading Iran, I’m...

Unbelievably, Congress is considering a restriction on the ability of the U.S. to defend itself. The proposal, tucked into this year’s defense bill, would prohibit the Pentagon from spending money to deploy smaller, low-yield nuclear warheads on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. These weapons have been scheduled to be deployed before the effective date of this year’s defense bill, meaning that this provision would pre-emptively recall the weapons from deployment. Preventing these missiles from being deployed dangerously threatens America’s ability to defend itself against adversaries who themselves possess low-yield nuclear weapons. Last year, with a bipartisan vote, Congress provided funding necessary to...

One of history’s greatest “what ifs” is the question of what would have happened had the Germans been able to develop nuclear weapons during the Second World War. The Wehrmacht’s effort to do just that, called the Uranverein, or “Uranium Club,” began in 1939 when German Army physicist Kurt Diebner began to research the potential military applications of nuclear fission. By year’s end, the renowned German physicist Werner Heisenberg had expressed his belief that nuclear fission chain reactions, and thus, eventually, nuclear bombs, might be possible, but only if he had access to enough of a singular substance known as...

Iran will restart part of its halted nuclear program in response to the U.S. withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal but does not itself plan to pull out of the agreement, the state-run IRIB news agency reported on Monday. Citing a source close to an official commission which oversees the nuclear deal, IRIB reported that President Hassan Rouhani would announce that Iran would reduce some of its "minor and general" commitments under the deal on May 8- exactly one year after U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. pullout. Trump subsequently reimposed tough sanctions on Iran, including on its...