Free Republic

Mein Kampf is being reprinted and sold in Germany for the first time since World War Two. The copyright on Adolf Hitler's book expired at the beginning of this year.

Fri Jan 8, 2016 2:20pm EST Islamic State claims Libyan police center bombing Islamic State has claimed responsibility for a suicide truck bombing on a Libyan police training center on Thursday that killed at least 47 people, in the worst such attack since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. Islamic State fighters have expanded their presence in the North African state, taking advantage of turmoil to control the city of Sirte and launch attacks on oilfields and key oil ports. "This operation is one in a series of the battle of Abu al-Mughira al-Qahtani, which will not stop until...

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the head of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition party of treason on Friday for using a trip to Moscow to condemn Ankara’s shooting down of a Russian warplane over Syria. Selahattin Demirtas, co-head of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), met foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Wednesday and criticised Ankara for shooting down the warplane near the border with Syria last month. Moscow denies it had entered Turkish airspace.

<p>President Bashar al-Assad’s forces are making a new push in southern Syria with the help of Russian air cover in a move that could not only weaken one of the country’s remaining rebel strongholds, but also threaten the balance of power on a combustible border with Israel.</p>

Saudi Arabia is mulling the sale of shares in Aramco, believed to be the world's most valuable company, as part of plans to repair its finances and open up its economy. The announcement was made by the country's deputy crown prince as Saudi's secretive, state-owned oil firm grapples with the effects of oil prices nearing 12-year lows . Mohammed bin Salman told The Economist: "That is something that is being reviewed, and we believe a decision will be made over the next few months." The Saudi economy has taken a battering from the oil price decline and the finance ministry...

By the end of the decade, there are projected to be 7.13 million Palestinians, compared to 6.96 million Jews, in Israel and Palestine. New estimates show that high Palestinian birth rates, are set to equal the number of Jews in Israel and Palestine by late 2017, Haaretz daily reported. According to a recent report by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, currently, the number of Palestinian residents of Israel, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is about 6.22 million. Palestinians worldwide are estimated to number some 12.37 million, with 5.46 million living in Arab countries, 2.9 million in the...

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday Saudi Arabia could not hide its "crime" of executing a Shi'ite cleric by cutting ties with Tehran, but Iranian authorities disowned an attack on the Saudi embassy in Iran. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Sudan broke all ties with Iran and the United Arab Emirates downgraded its relations on Monday after the Saudi embassy in Tehran was stormed by protesters. Kuwait recalled its ambassador to Iran on Tuesday. An angry mob broke into the embassy on Saturday night and started fires following protests against the kingdom's execution of cleric Nimr al-Nimr, a prominent critic...

According to a recent report by the Institute for the Study of War, Russia's involvement in the Syrian civil war has shifted the battlefield momentum in favor of President Bashar al-Assad. It reads, "In Aleppo province, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and associated proxy forces launched a multipronged offensive on Oct. 15 that has seized large swaths of rebel-held terrain in the southern countryside of Aleppo City." According to the same report, pro-regime forces achieved tactical gains against the opposition in northeastern Latakia province. The FSA is currently present in northern Syria around Aleppo and Hama as well as in...

2015 in 5 words: the Americans lie and Russians bomb #Syria #Kafranbel pic.twitter.com/adNBjEQfat— Raed Fares (@RaedFares4) January 2, 2016

MOSCOW—The director of Russia’s military intelligence agency has died unexpectedly, according to a short statement released Monday on the Kremlin website, which didn't specify the cause of his death. Col. Gen. Igor Sergun had run the Main Intelligence Directorate of Russia’s General Staff, known as the GRU, since late 2011. He was 58 years old. Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, in a statement released to the Interfax news agency, said Col. Gen. Sergun died suddenly on Sunday. Mr. Shoigu’s statement offered no additional details.

Is Russia’s Hidden Hand Somewhere in the Samir Kuntar Assassination? Missile strike on target in Damascus is clear challenge to Moscow, which raises question of whether there was some kind of understanding or coordination in advance. Anshel Pfeffer Dec 22, 2015 10:38 PM read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.693327

Saudi Arabia stews in policy hell: Spengler By David P. Goldman on January 3, 2016 in David P. Goldman, Spengler, China, Middle East, AT Top Writers Last week's mass executions in Saudi Arabia suggest panic at the highest level of the monarchy. The action is without precedent, even by the grim standards of Saudi repression. In 1980 Riyadh killed 63 jihadists who had attacked the Grand Mosque of Mecca, but that was fresh after the event. Most of the 47 prisoners shot and beheaded on Jan. 2 had sat in Saudi jails for a decade. The decision to kill the...

Over the weekend, a series of dramatic events stemming from Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr plunged the Mid-East further into chaos. The torching of the Saudi embassy in Tehran prompted Riyadh to cut diplomatic ties with the Iranians and on Monday, Bahrain quickly followed while the UAE recalled its ambassador. Now, the stage is set for a full blown sectarian showdown complete with protests by oppressed Shiites in the Gulf states, anti-Sunni sentiment in Iran and Iraq, and, in a worst case scenario, a direct (as opposed to a proxy) conflict between the Saudis and the Iranians....

Research group: images of twenty Russians responsible for downing MH17 The number of people in the picture for the downing of flight MH17 is reduced to twenty Russian soldiers. They know which of them on July 17 2014 the Buk missile fired at the unit of Malaysia Airlines. That says Eliot Higgins, founder of the international collective research Bellingcat in an interview with NOS. The network of citizen journalists urged through social media and other public Internet resources on the military. A comprehensive report containing their names and photographs has Bellingcat two weeks ago given to the Dutch Public Prosecution...

The Iraqi army will need Kurdish fighters' help to retake Mosul, the largest city under the control of Islamic State, Iraqi Finance Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said, with the planned offensive expected to be very challenging. Mosul, 400 km (250 miles) north of Baghdad, has been designated by the government as the next target for Iraq's armed forces after they retook the western city of Ramadi."Mosul needs good planning, preparations, commitment from all the key players," Zebari, a Kurd, said in an interview on Monday in Baghdad. "Peshmerga is a major force; you cannot do Mosul without Peshmerga," he told Reuters,...

[Too long title - Wake Up You Sleepy Heads The End Is Near Even The New York Times Is Beginning To Get It That Erdogan Is A Hitler Antichrist] This is no time to slumber. Instead keep watch. We said that 2016 will be an interesting year. After posting last night, while the world played with fireworks and watched Times Square nonsense awaiting a “happy new year” with the rest of the worldly, we stated that 2016 will not be a happy new year and initiated the year as we watched Erdogan proclaiming his Hitler remarks. The times that are...

A thorough, documented, criminal indictment of George Herbert Walker Bush, establishing beyond a reasonable doubt his guilt as a supervisor in the conspiracy to assassinate John F. Kennedy. You must see it to believe that former president George Herbert Walker Bush was connected to the assassination of JFK. Once you see this documentary though there should be no doubt in your mind that it's true. The evidence is overwhelming and as the author of this documentary, John Hankey says, "If we could present this evidence to a jury in Texas, he would pay with his life". Did you know that...

Iranian protesters broke into the Saudi embassy in Tehran after launching several Molotov cocktails into the building. The rally in front of the embassy was triggered by Riyadh’s execution of a prominent Shiite cleric.

If you read Stephen Moore's column, he noted how the consensus over oil is wrong. We're not running out of oil. In fact, many have been saying we're going to run out since the 1930s: These stupid predictions of the end of oil have been going on for most of the last century. Just over 100 years ago, the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated total future production at 6 billion barrels, yet we've produced more than 20times that amount. In 1939 the Department of the Interior predicted U.S. oil supplies would last 13 years. I could go on. The folks...

<p>Putin is Israelis’ person of the year, according to a Panels Research poll taken for The Jerusalem Post and its Hebrew sister publication Ma’ariv Sof Hashavua.</p>