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Iran has taken drastic measures to contain the new coronavirus outbreak, ordering the closure of schools, universities and cultural centres across 14 provinces from Sunday following eight deaths in the Islamic Republic – the most outside East Asia and the first in the Middle East. Iran’s outbreak surfaced on Wednesday and has quickly worsened with 43 cases confirmed. “The concern is … that we have seen … a very rapid increase (in Iran) in a matter of a few days,” said Sylvie Briand, director of the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) global infectious hazard preparedness department. Iran’s government also ordered all...

The situation in Syria is "extremely bad and getting worse", UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said. He spoke after briefing the Security Council about his first trip to Syria since taking the post on 1 September. Mr Brahimi said he would return soon, but admitted he did not have a full plan on how to bring peace to Syria. The statement comes as violence continues across the country. Activists said the government was bombing parts of the second city, Aleppo. Speaking at UN headquarters in New York, Mr Brahimi said: "There is no disagreement anywhere that the situation in Syria...

I have spent my entire 35 year professional life developing and implementing energy policies vital to our state. So it pains me to now see California taking an unfortunate misstep: embracing participation in the Western Climate Initiative. WCI, developed by seven U.S. states (California is joined by Oregon, Washington, Utah, Montana, New Mexico and Arizona) and several Canadian provinces along the western rim of North America, proposes to combat global warming – independently from their national governments. Herein lays the first reason I oppose the WCI: with the likelihood of federal pre-emption with President Obama and the 111th Congress set...

CAIRO — Conditions in the US detention facility in Guantanamo are worsening with the sweeping majority of detainees being held in cruel isolation, Amnesty International said in a new reported issued on Thursday, April 5.

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

<p>THIS WINTER has been a strange one -- periods of extreme cold followed by unseasonable warmth. While some may consider this a "good old fashioned winter," it bears little resemblance to those of the 1950s or '60s. Scientists and policymakers alike are concerned that carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels are having an increasingly significant impact on our regional and global climate.</p>