Free Republic

USA Rare Earth, the funding and development partner of the Round Top heavy rare earth project and Texas Mineral Resources announced Thursday that its rare earths pilot plant processing facility in Wheat Ridge, Colorado has received the required permits and officially opened. Once fully commissioned, the plant will be focused on group separation of rare earths into heavy (dysprosium, terbium), middle, and light (neodymium, praseodymium) rare earths (REE’s) and will be the first facility to separate the full range of rare earth elements in the US since 1999. USA Rare Earth’s pilot plant is the second link in a 100%...

A rapid 14-day environmental review has seen a new uranium mine approved in Utah. The endorsement is part of a refreshed Trump administration process to fast-track permissions for energy and mining projects. The Velvet-Wood uranium project received a green light on Friday. It is owned and operated by the Canadian company Anfield Energy. The approval tick comes 11 days after the Interior Department ordered the Bureau of Land Management to review the mine’s environmental impacts within two weeks, as opposed to the prior timeline of months or years.The dynamic new approach has been expected since President Donald Trump declared a...

President Donald Trump signed several executive orders (EOs) on nuclear energy proliferation and an order removing political considerations from public-sector science, as conservatives claimed the latter was scandalized in its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Trump also signed restoring "gold standard science" as the cornerstone of federal research. A senior White House official said on Friday there has been a decline in "disruptive research" and investments in biomedical research, along with "serious cases" of fraud and misconduct and the inability to reproduce scientific methods for the purpose of restoring public trust. The official also blamed policy responses to the COVID-19...

BATA, Equatorial Guinea—Classified American intelligence reports suggest China intends to establish its first permanent military presence on the Atlantic Ocean in the tiny Central African country of Equatorial Guinea, according to U.S. officials. The officials declined to describe details of the secret intelligence findings. But they said the reports raise the prospect that Chinese warships would be able to rearm and refit opposite the East Coast of the U.S.—a threat that is setting off alarm bells at the White House and Pentagon. Principal deputy U.S. national security adviser Jon Finer visited Equatorial Guinea in October on a mission to persuade...

Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) says the Trump administration should drop nuclear negotiations with Iran and finish off the country's nuclear facilities with a military strike. "Waste that s—t," the Pennsylvania Democrat told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview on Wednesday. "You're never going to be able to negotiate with that kind of regime that has been destabilizing the region for decades already, and now we have an incredible window, I believe, to do that, to strike and destroy Iran's nuclear facilities." Fetterman dismissed the foreign policy experts who warn that striking Iran would lead to the outbreak of...

FULL TITLE: 'Something was off': Survivor says US troops were stalled by a village elder before they were ambushed by 50 terrorists in Niger for hours following a near 24 hour patrol operation The four American special forces killed fighting in Niger were ambushed by 50 ISIS terrorists after they were stalled by a village elder, a survivor of the attack has revealed. The group of 12 American forces had accompanied 30 Nigerien forces to an area about 85 kilometers north of the capital Niamey on a routine reconnaissance mission on October 3, when a dramatic new order came through...

Russia said Thursday that any attacks on its ally Iran would be unacceptable and illegal, warning of irreversible consequences if the U.S. were to bomb the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities. The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned President Trump’s threat to bomb Iran if a deal on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is not reached, reiterating its support for Iran’s program.“The use of military force by Iran’s opponents in the context of the settlement is illegal and unacceptable,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said. “Threats from outside to bomb Iran’s nuclear infrastructure facilities will inevitably lead to an irreversible global catastrophe....

I am having a back and forth with Japan Today regarding their publishing of an article which appeared in Capitol Hill Blue that has subsequently been exposed to be false.Japan Today did not get the article from Capitol Hill Blue though. They got it from Truthout.org, a leftist propaganda outfit.I wanted to see if Truthout.org even had the story up on their site. I went to their main page, Truthout.org and checked. Nothing. I noticed a search box up at the top. So I took a phrase from the original article, sought significant quantities and hit search.Bingo.Here is what the...

By Wayne Allyn Root In just the past few hours, we have uncovered perhaps the biggest scandal of the Biden presidency. It turns out Joe Biden never signed anything- no laws, no Executive Orders, no legal documents, nothing. They were all signed by autopen. There were no original signatures. Which makes them all illegal. That makes everything that happened and passed during the past four years null and void. But that brings up the question of the century: If Biden never signed anything, who did? Who was calling the shots? Who was running the country? I know the answer… All...

At the tail end of the fiery Oval Office exchange pitting Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky against President Trump and Vice President Vance, Trump spent two heated minutes on a theme the media will likely bury. “Putin went through a hell of a lot with me,” said Trump. “He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia. Russia. Russia. Russia.” What Trump did not say, but he might have, is that the constant scapegoating of Russia and Putin made America’s proxy war against Russia an easy sell. What Trump might also have said is that before he...

In a soon-to-be-published article in Middle East Quarterly magazine, Colin Winston, a 30-year veteran of the CIA and former head of research at the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), lays out a succinct case for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “Hezbollah and Hamas no longer pose a threat to Israel,” Winston writes. “The Islamic Republic of Iran’s ‘axis of resistance’ lies in ruin. Both Iran’s and Syria’s air defense systems have been destroyed, and Iran’s missile capabilities decimated. “Despite this, Iran is on the verge of producing enough weapons-grade uranium to build several bombs – so close, in...

BUKAVU, Congo — Rwanda-backed rebels have "occupied" a second major city in mineral-rich eastern Congo, Congo's government said Sunday, as M23 rebels positioned themselves at the governor's office in Bukavu and pledged to clean up after the "old regime." Associated Press journalists witnessed scores of residents cheering on the rebels after they entered Bukavu following a dayslong march from Goma, a city of 2 million people they seized last month. The rebels saw little resistance from government forces against the unprecedented expansion of their reach after their years of fighting. Congo's government vowed to restore order in Bukavu, a city...

Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, of Japan, pleaded guilty in Manhattan, New York, today to conspiring with a network of associates to traffic nuclear materials, including uranium and weapons-grade plutonium, from Burma to other countries, as well as to international narcotics trafficking and weapons charges.“Today’s plea should serve as a stark reminder to those who imperil our national security by trafficking weapons-grade plutonium and other dangerous materials on behalf of organized criminal syndicates that the Department of Justice will hold you accountable to the fullest extent of the law,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security...

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options for a potential U.S. attack on Iran's nuclear facilities if the Iranians move towards a nuclear weapon before Jan. 20, in a meeting several weeks ago that remained secret until now, three sources with knowledge of the issue tell Axios. Why it matters: A U.S. strike on Iran's nuclear program during the lame duck period would be an enormous gamble from a president who promised he would not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, but who would also risk handing a fresh conflict over to his successor....

President-elect Trump made quite the buzz over the weekend when he expressed a strong interest in acquiring the Danish-controlled autonomous territory of Greenland, a land that is both immensely resource-rich and strategically a high priority to the interests of all major powers. In a post on Truth Social on Sunday, Trump announced the nomination of PayPal co-founder Ken Howery to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, writing: “For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.” Greenland is incredibly resource-rich,...

Georgia Representative Mike Collins, a staunch ally of President-elect Donald Trump, has appeared to float the idea of the United States once again trying to purchase Greenland. On Thursday, Collins posted an image on X (formerly Twitter) of Trump's winning 2024 Electoral College map with the addition of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. The island was colored in red, appearing to suggest it would vote Republican if admitted to the union. "Project 2029," he wrote in the caption, potentially suggesting such a purchase could be achieved if Republicans win again in 2028. Representative Collins frequently shares memes on social...

Iran intends to "significantly increase" its production of highly enriched uranium, according to a confidential report released Friday by the UN nuclear watchdog and seen by the AFP news agency. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report noted that updates to the design of Iran's Fordow facility would "significantly increase the rate of production of uranium enriched up to 60 percent." The new production rate is expected to exceed 34 kilograms of highly enriched uranium per month, a substantial jump from the previous rate of 4.7 kilograms. In its report, the IAEA urged Iran to allow inspections "as a matter...

A veteran South African official detailed meeting with an unprepared and “desperate” Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, begging for local help rolling back the popular coup in Niger. The recent BRICS conference might give Nuland even more to fret about. When US Acting Deputy Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, traveled to South Africa on July 29, her reputation as a blunt instrument of Washington’s hegemonic interests preceded her. According to a veteran South African official who attended meetings with the senior US diplomat in Pretoria, however, Nuland and her team were demonstrably unprepared to grapple with recent developments...

Iran has defied international demands to rein in its nuclear program and has increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade levels, according to a confidential report by the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog seen Tuesday by The Associated Press. The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said that as of Oct. 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of uranium enriched up to 60%, an increase of 17.6 kilograms (38.8 pounds) since the last report in August. Uranium enriched at 60% purity is just a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%. The IAEA also estimated...

The good news is that nuclear power — safe, clean, affordable, and carbon-free — has been coming back in a big way here in the USA in recent months. The weird news is that it's generally left-leaning tech firms and AI's ravenous need for electricity leading the charge (SWIDT?) to build new nuclear power plants or spin shuttered ones back up. The bad news is that voters of this country were twice reckless enough to put people like Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton in charge — and now Russia is putting the kibosh on the uranium exports we...