Free Republic

The British government’s plans to hand control of the strategically significant Chagos Islands to Mauritius are set to be signed off on Thursday, after an 11th-hour legal injunction failed to stop an effort that has been intensely controversial in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Prime Minister Keir Starmer intends to return the islands to the African country, while maintaining control of the US-UK Diego Garcia military base, and the deal is expected be finalized on Thursday. It comes after a High Court judge briefly blocked the move in a ruling made at 2 a.m. local time (9...

• Syrian rebels are speeding toward the major city of Homs, where residents are fleeing ahead of potential clashes between the rebels and regime forces. • The rebels seized Hama to the north on Thursday, the second major city taken from President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in just over a week of fighting. • A new uprising has also emerged in the southern Daraa province, with rebels there claiming to have taken a major military base and announcing that their “destination is Damascus.” • Russia’s embassy in Syria has urged its citizens to leave the country, citing “the difficult military and...

Scientists finally re-analyzed the study and found that it was riddled with errors—but that didn’t matter then because it furthered the narrative. In America, an inordinate number of so-called “scientific” studies are subject to what’s called the “replication (or reproducibility) crisis.” If someone publishes a study that feeds into leftist shibboleths, no matter how poorly done the study is (small sampling, foolish assumptions, bad math, etc.), the results are widely trumpeted and become embedded in the popular consciousness. That the study cannot be replicated (run again from scratch) or reproduced (subject to a new analysis of the study’s data)—and often...

Ukraine claims it destroyed Russian spy plane in attack over Sea of Azov By Olga Voitovych, Anna Chernova, Victoria Butenko, Svitlana Vlasova and Rob Picheta, CNN Updated 12:34 PM EST, Mon January 15, 2024 Ukraine claimed it destroyed a Russian spy plane over the Sea of Azov on Monday, in what would be a significant strike against Moscow’s aerial capabilities. Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi initially said on Telegram on Monday that two aircraft had been destroyed, writing: “Warriors of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine destroyed an enemy A-50 long-range radar detection aircraft and an enemy IL-22...

Three months ago, speaking to citizens rocked by a horrific day of attacks by Hamas, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a promise. “The IDF will immediately use all its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities,” Netanyahu said. “We will destroy them.” Now, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) is shifting to a new phase of its war on Hamas in Gaza – and there are signs its objectives are changing too. “The record is not very friendly to military campaigns seeking to eradicate political military movement that are deeply rooted,” Bilal Y. Saab, an associate fellow in the Middle East and...

A Taliban fighter walks past a Kabul beauty salon, where images of women are defaced by spray paint. Fear is mounting for women and girls in Afghanistan after the Taliban told working women to stay at home, admitting they were not safe in the hands of the militant group's soldiers. Taliban spokesperson Zabiullah Mujahid said at a news conference on Tuesday that women should not go to work for their own safety, undermining the group's efforts to convince international observers that the group would be more tolerant towards women than when they were last in power. The instruction came the...

"There are no words to express the result" was the beaming reaction of Belgium's Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage, after a 15th-century masterpiece -- painted over shortly after completion -- was restored to its former glory. And they were right -- commentators have been left speechless by one particular aspect of the newly revealed painting. The latest panel of the "Ghent Altarpiece," a large work by Hubert and Jan van Eyck, was unveiled in December as part of an ongoing project to restore the painting to its original design. The painting -- also known as "The Adoration of the Mystic...

"I don't want to be a flat Earther," David Weiss says, his voice weary as he reflects on his personal awakening. "Would you wake up in the morning and want everyone to think you're an idiot?" But Weiss is a flat Earther. Ever since he tried and failed to find proof of the Earth's curve four years ago, he's believed with an evident passion that our planet is both flat and stationary -- and it's turned his world upside down. "I absolutely freaked out," Weiss tells CNN in a phone interview. "It literally whips the rug out from underneath you."...