Free Republic

Pinning the death of Jamal Khashoggi on Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman is important to those who want to return to the Obama-era alignment of the U.S. with Iran, not Saudi Arabia, as our principal relationship with the Middle East Muslim world. MbS, as he is known, is a committed modernizer, favorable to warming relations with Israel. Damaging his global standing with the tar of culpability for the killing and dismemberment of Khashoggi could even lead to his fall from the pinnacle of power in Riyadh.Caroline Glick explains who Khashoggi really was — not an actual "journalist" or "columnist"...

Biden is determined to return to the (to him) halcyon days of Obama's Iran deal — an illegal treaty by which Obama gave Iran money and access to nuclear weapons. The real tragedy of Biden's goal is that, thanks to Trump's relentless pressure, Iran is on the ropes, and Biden has the upper hand — he just doesn't know this or, worse, doesn't want to know it.In Iran and the Middle East, when Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, emerges in public, people say he only speaks evil and issues threats. On Monday, February 22, after Iran and the IAEA reached...

"The Biden administration is deeply hostile to Israel." Mark Levin, the conservative Jewish American radio broadcaster with more than 14 million daily listeners, has a gloomy forecast for the future of American media coverage of the United States, of Israel and of ties between the two countries. Ahead of the launch of the Hebrew-language edition of his bestselling book, Unfreedom of the Press, Levin tells Israel Hayom that to understand the nature and depth of the danger that the U.S. media poses to democracy in America, you have to understand the way that the U.S. media treats Israel. “I think...

Former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo decried the Biden administration's release of a declassified report regarding Saudi Arabia's involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi on Sunday, calling the report's release a "reckless" move. Speaking on Fox News on Sunday, the former secretary of State under the Trump administration argued that the Biden administration had "political" motives for releasing the report and was bent on souring the U.S.-Saudi relationship over the issue. "The release of this report was reckless....this administration wants to develop a relationship with Iran and destroy one with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia ...

Iran rejected on Sunday an invitation from global powers who signed the 2015 nuclear deal to discuss the regime’s potential return to the negotiating table, a significant setback in the Biden administration’s efforts to revive the agreement. The Biden administration has previously said that it wants to revive the nuclear deal but won’t suspend sanctions until Tehran comes back into compliance. Tehran has refused to negotiate while U.S. sanctions remain in place. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), brokered by the Obama administration, lifted sanctions on Iran that had crippled its economy and cut its oil exports roughly...

An examination of damage to an Israeli-owned cargo ship currently docked in Dubai indicates an explosion that hit it in the Gulf of Oman was caused by mines covertly attached to the ship, according to a Sunday TV report. Channel 13 news did not cite sources for the report, which contradicted earlier reported assessments in Israel that that blast was caused by missiles. An Israeli team is believed to be in Dubai to examine the ship following the suspected attack. The ship is undergoing repairs in Dubai. Limpet mines are a type of naval explosive that attach to targets using...

The Biden administration is set to make public a report that blames Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman for the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi. The Washington Post journalist was a fierce critic of the kingdom and killed at the Saudi consulate in Turkey. CBS News senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang joins CBSN to discuss the report and how it could affect the U.S. relationship with the kingdom.

President Joe Biden on Thursday ended US support for Saudi Arabia's devastating war in Yemen and dramatically increased the welcome to refugees, ushering in a major reset in American foreign policy. In his first major speech on foreign affairs as president, Biden also froze former president Donald Trump's plans to redeploy troops from Germany and vowed a tough approach against what he described as a rising authoritarian threat from China and Russia.

The super-sophisticated malware that infiltrated Kaspersky Labs is more crafty than first imagined. We're told that the Duqu 2.0 software nasty was signed using legit digital certificates issued to Foxconn – a world-leading Chinese electronics manufacturer, whose customers include Microsoft, Dell, Google, BlackBerry, Amazon, Apple, and Sony. The code-signing was uncovered by researchers at Kaspersky Lab, who are studying their Duqu 2.0 infection. Windows trusts Foxconn-signed code because the Chinese goliath's certificate was issued by VeriSign, which is a trusted certificate root. Thus, the operating system will happily load and run the Foxconn-signed Duqu 2.0's 64-bit kernel-level driver without setting...

A briefing between the State Department and congressional staff over Vladimir Putin's Russia-Germany gas pipeline got tense this week, with Biden officials deflecting questions about why they hadn't moved faster and more aggressively with sanctions to stop its completion. The Biden officials also denied negotiating with the Germans over a potential side deal to allow the pipeline to be finished.Why it matters: As we reported earlier this week, some allies are worried that Biden is shaky on Putin's Nord Stream 2 pipeline, and the fight is a significant test of whether the new president's tough rhetoric against Russia will be...

Sean Brian Townsend is an independent researcher in the field of information and computer security, a member and the spokesman of the Ukrainian Cyber Alliance. He explains how Kaspersky Lab and the FSB hacked and leaked the secret NSA tools under the guise of The Shadow Brokers hacker group. These leaks became the origin of WannaCry, NotPetya, and BadRabbit ransomware attacks. The editors of InformNapalm may not share the opinions of the authors in the [opinion] section, and does not alter the original style of the articles. Antivirus software – myths and reality The activities of antivirus (AV) companies are...

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), a member of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on President Joe Biden to consult Congress on Thursday’s deadly airstrikes targeting Iran-backed military groups in eastern Syria. “The American people deserve to hear the Administration’s rationale for these strikes and its legal justification for acting without coming to Congress,” Kaine said in a Friday statement. “Offensive military action without congressional approval is not constitutional absent extraordinary circumstances. Congress must be fully briefed on this matter expeditiously.” Biden waged the first military action of his presidency by ordering a strike on Syrian facilities in response to...

Seven years ago today, Russia violated international law, the norms by which modern countries engage one another, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of its neighbor Ukraine when it invaded Crimea. The United States continues to stand with Ukraine and its allies and partners today, as it has from the beginning of this conflict. On this somber anniversary, we reaffirm a simple truth: Crimea is Ukraine. The United States does not and will never recognize Russia’s purported annexation of the peninsula, and we will stand with Ukraine against Russia’s aggressive acts. We will continue to work to hold Russia accountable...

—Russian diplomats stuck in North Korea for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic embarked this week on a remarkable odyssey to get home, traveling by bus, train—and hand-powered rail cart. For just over a year, the diplomats had been unable to leave North Korea after Pyongyang sealed its borders due to the coronavirus. Deciding to leave on their own, the group traveled 32 hours by train and an additional two hours by bus to reach the North Korean-Russian border. The group of Russians included the embassy’s third secretary, Vladislav Sorokin, and his 3-year-old daughter Varya, who was...

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, criticized the Biden administration for the way it notified Congressional leaders about the U.S.’s military strike targeting Iran-backed military groups in eastern Syria on Thursday evening. Schiff, who is a member of the Gang of Eight which receives briefings on classified intelligence matters by the executive branch, told CNN reporter Manu Raju that Biden’s “means of notification” if the strike was “inadequate.”

The U.S. military carried out an airstrike against an Iranian-backed militia stronghold in Syria Thursday, a senior U.S. official told Fox News. Multiple facilities were struck in the air attack, which was sanctioned by President Biden. The senior official said the strike was a defensive strategy, intended to halt and deter future rocket attacks by the militia group that recently hit Baghdad and Erbil.

A group of Food and Drug Administration experts green lighting the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use... The coronavirus crackdown in Israel for the Purim holiday. On the first night of an overnight curfew more than 100 parties broken up and over 25-hundred citations issued... Rush Limbaugh laid to rest at a cemetery in St. Louis on Wednesday in a private ceremony ... The only deadly act of violence at the US Capitol on January 6th was by a US Capitol police officer who killed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt.. "The new US administration should first and foremost...

The House Intelligence Committee's Kash Patel said senior intelligence officials 'continuously impeded' their release – usually by slow-walking their reviews of the material.After four years of railing against “deep state” actors who, he said, tried to undermine his presidency, Donald Trump relented to U.S. intelligence leaders in his final days in office, allowing them to block the release of critical material in the Russia investigation, according to a former senior congressional investigator who later joined the Trump administration.Kash Patel, whose work on the House Intelligence Committee helped unearth U.S. intelligence malpractice during the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane probe, said he does...

Brent Crude prices could hit $70 a barrel in the second quarter of 2021, while they are set to average $60 this year, Bank of America said this week, raising its average price outlook by $10 a barrel from its previous projection. Echoing Bank of America, Morgan Stanley also sees Brent touching the $70 mark this year, but a bit later - in the third quarter, expecting “a much-improved market,” including on the demand side. On Sunday, Goldman Sachs started the investment banks’ upgrades of oil price forecasts, expecting Brent Crude prices to hit $75 a barrel in the third...

Russian-made Iskander (SS-26 Stone) ballistic missile methods are “fully ineffective”, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated yesterday. The Armenian Prime Minister argued that the Iskander ballistic missiles are problematic and ineffective. That is how Pashinyan responded to former Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who acknowledged that he would have used Iskander on the fourth day of the struggle in Nagorno-Karabakh. Sargsyan additionally requested why these complexes didn’t have an effect on the oil and fuel services of Azerbaijan. For its half, the prime minister stated that the Russian missiles are ineffective and don’t totally explode. “Let him ask the query, why...