Free Republic

I've been working hard this week trying to keep abreast of national and international events, and I’ve come to the conclusion that much of what is most important to know remains as yet murky and unverifiable. International DevelopmentsSome things are clear. The decades-long oppression of the people of Cuba is coming to an end within days. The country is woefully short of energy sources -- in significant part because Maduro is out and Venezuela is no longer providing it. The country is now barely existing in blackout conditions. President Trump has announced that major tariffs will be imposed on any...

Five people were killed, and 14 were reportedly injured in two blasts that rocked Iran’s port city of Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz.Further explosions were reported in Karaj, and the Parand neighborhood of Tehran.Five people were killed, and 14 were reportedly injured in two blasts that rocked Iran’s port city of Bandar Abbas and Ahvaz.Further explosions were reported in Karaj, and the Parand neighborhood of Tehran.According to a Reuters report citing local officials, one person was killed and 14 were injured in the Bandar Abbas blast. An additional five people were confirmed dead from blasts in Ahvaz, Iran International reported.According to...

ranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been transferred to an underground bunker in Iran after senior officials in the country’s security forces assessed that concerns are growing over a possible American strike, Iran International reported Saturday. Khamenei's son, Masoud, has assumed governing authority. Meanwhile, Iran Times, a newspaper identified with the IRGC, quoted the Iranian Defense Ministry spokesperson as saying that Iran’s defensive and missile capabilities have become more effective, and are quantitatively and qualitatively superior compared to what they were during Operation Rising Lion in June 2025. At the same time, levels of preparedness and tension ahead of...

Britain evacuated its ambassador and all consular staff from Tehran on Wednesday, closing its embassy temporarily amid escalating security concerns as Iran's government confronts what officials describe as the worst domestic unrest in the Islamic Republic's history.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett posted a video message on X on Monday addressed to protesters in Iran, saying they deserve a better future and that the free world stands with them. ​“The Iranian people have a glorious past, and they can have an even more glorious future. That future depends on every one of you." "So to all the brave men and women now rising up across your country, all the nations of the free world stand with you in your just struggle. Change is possible; there will be a better Middle East,” Bennett said.

1. PRAY FOR THE PROTECTION OF CITIZENS ACROSS IRAN That police and security forces would show restraint and act with wisdom rather than force That those participating in protests would be guarded from injury, arrest, or exploitation That communities living under fear would experience peace and calm 2. PRAY FOR WISDOM AND PROTECTION FOR HOUSE CHURCHES AND CHURCH LEADERS That leaders would know when to gather, when to wait, and how best to shepherd their people That house churches would remain out of view so believers can worship in safety That fear would not take root, and trust in God...

City after city has been reclaimed by jubilant, joyous crowds across Iran in the past few days."This is the final battle,Pahlavi will return"Tonight in Tehran, Iran's capital.pic.twitter.com/C6pyxSIB9M— 𝐍𝐢𝐨𝐡 𝐁𝐞𝐫𝐠 ♛ ✡︎ (@NiohBerg) January 8, 2026The streets in the capital of Tehran are alive tonight. 🚨SE TERMINÓ DE PUDRIR EN IRÁN🚨Las calles de Teherán completamente tomadas por los manifestantes que piden derrocar al ayatola. pic.twitter.com/PYDysqhIx7— ASB (@GordoLeyes) January 8, 2026Throngs of people, who sometimes seem as if it's the entire population in the street at one time, are marching and cheering, defying the basiji thugs who would brutalize and beat them...

Iranian protesters intensified nationwide demonstrations over the past 24 hours, directly appealing to President Donald Trump while chanting anti-regime slogans. Footage published Wednesday showed a protester in Tehran symbolically renaming a street after Trump, while other videos captured handwritten appeals reading, “Don’t let them kill us,” Iran International reported. Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, posted the video on X stating, “Since Trump’s comments about the Iran protests, I’ve seen numbers videos of Iranian protesters either thanking him or, in this case, renaming streets after the US president.” The appeals came as demonstrators faced a widening security...

No text, but Tousi TV reports: This is the 10th day of the protests against the Islamic dictatorship. Police stations have been taken over by opposition in Ishafan with police joining the demostrators. The revolutionary guards (IRGC) have been evicted from the city of Ilan (north-western Iran). Lots of people still out on the streets in Teheran. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmWG4mQH_xg

Jahvijaa Reza Pahlavi, Maata Khamenei, etc. Lots of videos. Day 10 and IRGC can't get a handle on it. Khamenei might go to Moscow with his family and entourage. Transcript linked below video.

In a significant shift in the Middle Eastern power dynamics, Iranian officials have admitted that their once-loyal proxy force, the Houthis in Yemen, is increasingly defying Tehran's orders. Reports indicate that the Houthis, who have long served as Iran's strategic arm in the ongoing conflicts against the United States and its allies, are now acting independently, much to the dismay of their former benefactors. A senior Iranian official disclosed that the Houthis have distanced themselves from Iran. “They have gone rogue for a while and are now really rebels,” the official stated, reflecting concerns within the Iranian regime as they...

Experts warn drought and water mismanagement have made the city's development unsustainable Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has suggested his country's capital will need to be moved from Tehran due to ecological unsustainability in the city. Speaking at a meeting in Qazvin, the president warned that relocating the capital would become unavoidable given the overcrowding and water shortages in the city of 9.7 million. His government has proposed the underdeveloped Makran region in southeastern Iran as a possible new location. "When we proposed relocating the capital, we lacked the budget - otherwise it might have happened," Pezeshkian told officials. "People said...

Water, and its absence, has become Iran’s national obsession. In the mosques of northern Tehran the imams have been praying for rain, while the meteorologists count down the hours until the weather is forecast to break and rain is finally due to fall from the sky. Forecasts of “rain-producing clouds” are front-page news. More than 50 days have passed since the start of Iran’s rainy season and more than 20 provinces have not yet had a drop. The number of dams that have less than 5% of their reservoir capacity had increased from eight to 32, and the crisis has...

Amid a deepening ecological crisis and acute water shortage, Tehran can no longer remain the capital of Iran, the country’s president has said. The situation in Tehran is the result of “a perfect storm of climate change and corruption,” says Michael Rubin, a political analyst at the American Enterprise Institute. “We no longer have a choice,” said Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian during a speech on Thursday. Instead Iranian officials are considering moving the capital to the country’s southern coast. But experts say the proposal does not change the reality for the nearly 10 million people who live in Tehran and...

Moving administrative capital from Tehran due to collapse of water supply. Starting up nuclear program again, arming up for battle against...against (da Jooos!) and exiting non-proliferation treaty, arresting "spies" everywhere, military gradually defecting to Reza Pahlavi, currency imploding. Transcript linked below video.

Inside Tehran’s newest metro station, Iranians who can be imprisoned for owning bibles will soon walk past a plaque that declares, “the message of Jesus Christ was the salvation of humans from darkness, ignorance, corruption, depravity and discrimination.”Elsewhere in the Maryam-e Moqaddas station, or Holy Mary station, a relief of Christ walking on water decorates a vestibule, and his mother Mary is depicted, larger than life, praying among flowers. Estimates of Iran’s Christian population varies widely but a 2020 survey from the Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) reported 1.5 percent of respondents identified as Christian. That...

Madani, who has long warned of environmental mismanagement in Iran, said the current water crisis across the nation was predictable. "The water bankruptcy situation was not created overnight," he said. "The house was already on fire, and people like myself had warned the government for years that this situation would emerge." President Masoud Pezeshkian warned that without rainfall before winter, Tehran could face partial evacuation, according to The Associated Press. Iran is facing its worst drought in decades, raising fears of evacuations in Tehran while threatening the regime’s stability and nuclear ambitions, according to a leading environmental expert. Kaveh Madani,...

An even more devastating terrorism charge could be laid on Iran's doorstep if intelligence reports linking Iran to al-Qaeda are confirmed. Insight has learned of new links between top Iranian intelligence officials and the al-Qaeda leadership that suggest direct Iranian government involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks on the U.S. mainland. Documents and information provided to this magazine by a recent Iranian defector, if confirmed as authentic, could open a new front in the war on terror. The defector, Hamid Reza Zakeri, says he worked in the intelligence office of Supreme Leader Ali Khameini and personally handled security at two...

The Obama administration recognizes that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi “has to reach out to his neighbors,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said Thursday in response to queries about Abadi’s meetings with Iran’s top leaders. During his visit to Tehran, Abadi appears to have been accompanied by a man named by the U.S. government during the Iraqi war as responsible for attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces. […] On the Iranian president’s website, one of the photographs of his meeting with the Iraqi prime minister shows Rouhani greeting a man—apparently a member of the Iraqi delegation—identified by the Foundation for...

The illusion of Iranian power was kept alive for decades by American engagement with the would-be lords of the Middle East. Now the spell is broken, and the ‘Axis of Resistance’ is shattered. A billboard with the "doomsday clock," counting down the days until Israel's destruction, is pictured in downtown Tehran, Iran, on November 4, 2024. Israel bombed the clock on Monday. A few months before he was buried under the rubble of his Beirut bunker, the late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, repeated to his followers, as he had done many times before, his famous line that Israel was...