Free Republic

The White House on Friday struggled to explain to reporters why it suddenly stopped holding coronavirus briefings after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued its latest masking guidance. “Why are the doctors not here in the briefing to take our questions?” asked NBC reporter Kelly O’Donnell during the White House press briefing on Friday. White House deputy press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended not having a briefing with the federal health officials, noting President Joe Biden himself spoke to the American people about the coronavirus pandemic on Thursday. “He gave a more than 30-minute speech,” Jean-Pierre argued, adding...

What is the trigger for a revolution? Sometimes it a brutal act of repression. Sometimes it a lost war, or a natural catastrophe, that exposes the failings of a regime. But more often than not, it is soaring food prices. The easiest prediction to make for 2013 is that everything we eat will once again rise sharply in price. So where will the revolutions start this year? Keep an eye on Algeria and Greece — and if you want to feel very nervous, Russia and China. And if you are smart, keep your money out of those countries as well....

IMF Says 10% Increase In Food Prices In Poor Countries Means A 100% Increase In RiotsFriday, April 1, 2011 IMF economists, Rabah Arezki and Markus Brueckner, are out with a new study. They looked at food prices and political unrest between the years 1970 and 2007, and found data which points to indications that a 10% increase in international food prices corresponds to an added 0.5 in anti-government protests over the following year in the low-income world — a 100% increase from the annual average. You have to take empirical studies with a grain of salt, since there are no...

The Arab freedom wave has now hit the shores of Europe and in the most unlikely of places: the Balkans. Croatia, an Adriatic nation that straddles the civilizational fault line between Central Europe and the Balkans, has been seething with public unrest and protests. For weeks, thousands of demonstrators have been assembling almost daily in the capital, Zagreb, and across other cities in this country of 4.4 million. They are demanding that the government step down and call snap elections. The situation is volatile - and could turn violent. The protests should come as no surprise. Croatia is on the...

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia When his royal jet lands here in the Saudi capital on Wednesday, ending a three-month absence, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz will find a nation seemingly moored in the eye of the epic storm howling around it. But it is also clear that the octogenarian king, who went to New York in late November for back surgery and then to Morocco to convalesce, is returning to a realm touched in significant ways by the youth rebellions roiling the Middle East. More than ever before, Saudis are openly calling for change, including political reforms. The most vociferous are...

Tyranny: Fidel Castro is facing revolts after Cuba was hit by its worst hurricane in memory. The destruction will cost $3 billion. But Castro is doing everything he can to keep aid out. And that's an outrage.