Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Russia's defense minister reshuffle was a further indication of Russian President Vladimir Putin's "desperation to sustain" his invasion of Ukraine, U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Monday. Putin tapped a civilian economist as his surprise new defense minister on Sunday in an attempt to gird Russia for economic war by trying to better utilize the defense budget and harness greater innovation to win in Ukraine.

A billboard in a western Jerusalem neighborhood that once thanked U.S. President Joe Biden for his support has been changed to criticize Biden for pressuring Israel not to pursue Hamas terrorists and win the war in Gaza. As Breitbart News noted in October, shortly after the outbreak of war: On Emek Refaim — a street in the heart of the old German Colony, an area popular with Americans — a billboard thanking President Joe Biden for his support was the only face in sight Friday evening. Families gathered quietly for the Sabbath meal; some walked through the streets, the mothers...

Iranian member of Parliament Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani said in an interview this weekend that he believed his country had successfully developed a nuclear weapon, contrary to international law, but would not admit to it. Ardestani claimed that Iran would still claim to be abiding by the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA), the 2015 agreement brokered by American President Barack Obama that dramatically reduced sanctions on Tehran in exchange for promises not to expand its nuclear development. Iran has consistently violated the nuclear deal for years; President Donald Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 but the other four countries...

The Biden Administration unveiled its second round of military aid to Ukraine for $400 million, following its $95 billion and $60 million for the country. The new package will consist a number of weapons, including: Patriot missile system munitions High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMAR) systems and ammunition Stinger anti-air missiles, 155mm artillery rounds Bradley Fighting Vehicles Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPs) “As President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine in its defense of its freedom,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement....

As Townhall reported — and anyone not blinded by rabid anti-Israel and pro-Hamas hatred presumed — the number of women and children killed in the Gaza Strip since Hamas launched its massacre on October 7 is far less than the United Nations or its terrorist sources reported. The UN's Office of Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) quite quietly and without an announcement matching the breathless outrage at and coverage of previously reported (and literally unbelievable) numbers, halved the number of women and children it previously claimed were killed in Gaza amid the war. The more than 14,000 children it said...

(Screenshot: Channel 12) US Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew insisted Sunday evening that “fundamentally, nothing has changed in the basic relationship” between Israel and the US — despite the decision last week by US President Joe Biden’s administration to delay a shipment of high-payload bombs to Israel, and Biden’s declaration that he would not supply offensive weapons to Israel for a major IDF offensive affecting population centers in southern Gaza’s Rafah. Noting that military aid from Washington to Jerusalem has increased since war erupted in Gaza after Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, Lew stressed in a Channel 12 interview that only...

Melinda French Gates announced on Monday that she is leaving the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation next month.Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Melinda, his ex-wife, had tried to continue working together on projects at foundation, one of the largest private philanthropies in the world, following their 2021 divorce.“After careful thought and reflection, I have decided to resign from my role as co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation. My last day of work at the foundation will be June 7,” French Gates wrote on X on Monday. “This is not a decision I came to lightly."Gates said that she...

Crowded enough for you at O.B., as the surfer dude haven of Ocean Beach is known in San Diego?Here come the illegals, making it even more crowded. Ocean Beach, California. Saturday, May 11, 2024 These are not Asylum seekers folks. Wake the Hell up. pic.twitter.com/6aZY9NuRo0 — Amy Reichert (@amyforsandiego) May 13, 2024 Yes, we've seen this phenomena already starting to happen now that San Diego has become the border crossing of choice for cartel-financed illegals into the U.S.Nobody knows who they are, where they're going, or what they're doing.But they are getting in, and what's more, nobody's doing anything about...

Defiant Columbia University graduates wore zip-tie handcuffs, brandished pro-Palestinian signs and even went as far as tearing up a diploma on stage during the Ivy League’s first commencement ceremonies last week. The protesting students were caught on camera storming across the platform on Friday to accept their degrees during ceremonies that were significantly pared after weeks of violent anti-Israel demonstrations on campus. In one of the most belligerent displays, Tarsis Salome, a Columbia social work graduate, charged forward with her zip-tied hands above her head as those in the audience cheered her on.

Onlookers at Ocean Beach in San Diego, California, stood by and watched as a boat sped onto the beach and unloaded what appeared to be a load of migrants being smuggled into the U.S. Events like this are becoming commonplace on Southern California beaches. Late last week, a cell phone video posted on social media captured the events as a boat landed on Ocean Beach in San Diego. An undetermined number of migrants disembarked from the beached boat and ran onshore in an effort to disappear into the neighboring community. The Invasion Continues! After last week’s startling revelation that boatloads...

EU member Estonia feels threatened by neighbour Russia. This year, the small NATO country will invest over 3% of its GDP to beef up its defence capabilities. It has also been hosting NATO exercises and training civilians in trench warfare, as EuronewsWitness reporter Hans von der Brelie discovered. Indrek Jurtšenko is a trained opera singer. But today he takes me to a military manoeuvre in the Estonian forests. Armed civilians, part of the “Estonian Defence League” (EDL), are war-gaming together with professional soldiers: “In our exercise there are 500 people from Estonia, Lithuania and France participating”, he says. The drill...

The changing language used by the Ukrainian military in 72 hours of daily updates tells the story: “Ongoing defensive fighting.” “Significantly worsened.” Russian “tactical success.”You rarely ever hear Kyiv’s top brass sounding downbeat, but their steep southerly trajectory reflects the grave place Ukraine finds itself in. Russia is not just advancing slowly in one place; it appears to be advancing in four, across the frontline.Moscow knows it is on the clock: in about a month, the $61billion of US military aid will start to translate into Ukraine having the weapons it has been begging for. So, Russian President Vladimir Putin...

Mayor Eric Adams called out sick on the third day of his weekend visit to Rome – cancelling a tour of an Italian school teaching migrants the local language to help them assimilate to society. Adams, who left for the Eternal City on Thursday and is due back in the Big Apple on Monday, seemed the image of health earlier in his trip, but fell ill and was coughing before his visit to the school Sunday and decided to cancel. Hizzoner was due to tour the Sant’Egidio Community, which is housed in a 1700s building in Rome’s Piazza di Santa...

Following President Joe Biden stating that he would withhold certain weapons from Israel amid the Israel-Hamas war, Republicans were confronted on Sunday over former President Ronald Reagan's similar stance to leverage military aid to Israel. On October 7, 2023, Hamas, a Palestinian militant group, launched an attack against Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage. In the months that followed, Israel's offensive has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the Associated Press reported, citing local health officials. On Wednesday, Biden warned he would stop supplying Israel with offensive weapons like bombs and artillery shells if Israeli...

The United Nations has significantly adjusted Palestinian casualty figures for the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip, halving the number of women and children previously reported killed. While more than 9,500 women and 14,500 children were reported among the fatalities by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on May 6, two days later that number was revised significantly downward. Today, under 5,000 women and 8,000 children are now officially listed by the UN as casualties. David Adesnik, director of research at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), told the National Post he suspects the...

Panama is on the verge of a dramatic change to its immigration policy that could reverberate from the dense Darien jungle to the U.S. border. President-elect José Raúl Mulino says he will shut down a migration route used by more than 500,000 people last year. Until now, Panama has helped speedily bus the migrants across its territory so they can continue their journey north. Whether Mulino is able to reduce migration through a sparsely populated region with little government presence remains to be seen, experts say. "Panama and our Darien are not a transit route. It is our border," Mulino...

As the Commander of a Ukrainian Special Reconnaissance Unit, he fought in Ukraine’s surprise offensive in Kharkiv in the autumn of 2022, which pushed back an initial Russian invasion all the way back to the border. But now Denys and his men are facing the prospect of doing the same all over again. Russian forces have, in recent days, made small but significant gains right along the border in the Kharkiv region.

President Joe Biden’s policy of mass migration is forcing up housing inflation, so pushing up interest rates and mortgage rates, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal. Housing prices should have dropped amid the recent supply of new apartments and homes, but have “not behaved the way we thought it would,” said Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.. “I still think it will, but if it doesn’t, we’re going to have a hard time” bringing inflation back down to the target of 2 percent, Goolsbee told the Journal for a May 11 article.

America’s attention to Arctic security has intensified in recent years. Our force structure has grown deliberately, a word that usually means “on purpose.” For this Alaskan, particularly when Russia and China practice war games with live ammunition in Alaska’s fishing grounds, “deliberate” can also mean “slowly,” or “not fast enough.” More intensive U.S. security “deliberation” might best be directed now toward Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, too. In geopolitics, the Antarctic has been quiet to date, or at least less competitive. A great circle air route over the South Pole has less traffic, and southern shipping has less strategic significance...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukrainian troops are locked in intense battles with the advancing Russian army in two border areas, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while the death toll from a Russian apartment building collapse blamed on Ukrainian shelling rose to 15. Zelenskyy said “fierce battles” are taking place near the border in eastern and northeastern Ukraine as outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian soldiers try to hold back a significant Russian ground offensive. “Defensive battles are ongoing, fierce battles, on a large part of our border area,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.