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<p>DES MOINES — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin told The Washington Post in an interview Friday that she is “seriously interested” in running for the White House in 2016. “You can absolutely say that I am seriously interested,” Palin said, when asked to clarify her thinking about a possible presidential bid. Palin, the GOP’s 2008 vice-presidential nominee, said she stood by comments she made Thursday in Las Vegas to ABC News, where she first expressed enthusiasm about potentially competing for the Republican presidential nomination. “I am. As I said yesterday, I’m really interested in the opportunity to serve at some point,” Palin said Friday, as former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, a potential 2016 rival, looked on. Palin’s comments, made in an interview in the lobby of the Marriott hotel here, came hours before she is scheduled to address a group of conservative activists at the Iowa Freedom Summit, a gathering hosted by Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), an immigration hard-liner. Palin said, “It is a significant step, of course, for anyone to publicly announce that they’re interested. Who wouldn’t be interested? Who wouldn’t be interested when they have been blessed with opportunities to speak about what is important to this country and for this country?” Still, Palin said that she is not yet ramping up a national political operation. Instead, Palin said, she is contemplating her political future and does not feel rushed to make a final decision. Palin arrived in Iowa Friday alongside Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), one of her closest political allies, and Jason Recher, one of Palin’s longtime political advisers. In the lobby, she signed autographs for some hotel guests and mingled with the dozens of GOP figures congregated near the lobby bar, including former House speaker Newt Gingrich.</p>

President Barack Obama’s New Year gift to Israel and the Middle East is a multibillion fund for establishing an Iraqi army as a division of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). Wednesday, the last day of 2014, two defense ministers, Iran’s Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehqani and Iraq’s Khallid al-Obeidi, signed a pact whereby Iran i.e. the Revolutionary Guards, will “continue to train new Iraqi military units" for replacing the army that crumbled under the onslaught launched by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant since last June. “We do not see any other option than cooperation and being on the same...

Dozens of rockets as well as mortar rounds were fired from the Gaza Strip Wednesday at southern Israeli towns. Hours later the IDF fired tank shells at what it termed “terror targets” in the Strip. Israeli reports put the number of rockets at over 60, and Islamic Jihad, which took responsibility for the attack, said it had fired 90 rockets at Israel. The organization said in a statement that it had launched an ongoing “military operation,” which it termed “Breaking the Silence.” No Israeli casualties were initially reported in the largest attack from the Strip since Operation Pillar of Defense...

The Obama administration has unilaterally eased restrictions on asylum seekers with loose or incidental ties to terror and insurgent groups, in a move one senator called "deeply alarming." The change, approved by Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and Secretary of State John Kerry, was announced Wednesday in the Federal Register. It would allow some individuals who provided "limited material support" to terror groups to be considered

Unbelievable!… Barack Obama invited Muslim Brotherhood Egyptian President Mohammad Morsi to meet with him in New York next week. But, not Netanyahu. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lectured Barack Obama in the Oval Office on the dangers facing the Jews back in May 2011. But… Barack Obama won’t meet with Israeli leader Netanyahu over Iran row. He’s going to be campaigning and on Letterman. Reuters reported: The White House has rejected a request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to meet President Barack Obama in the United States this month, an Israeli official said on Tuesday, after a row erupted between...

The Obama administration, despite the nation’s economic woes, effectively killed the job-producing Keystone Pipeline last month. The Arab Spring is turning the oil production of Libya and other Arab nations over to the Muslim Brotherhood. Iraq is distancing itself from the U.S. And everyone recognizes that Iran, whose crude supplies are critical to the European economy, will do anything it can to frustrate America’s strategic interests. In the face of all of this, Obama insists on cutting back U.S. oil potential with outrageous restrictions. Part of Obama’s apparent war against U.S. energy independence includes a foreign-aid program that directly threatens...

The Palestinian Authority (“P.A.”) is proceeding full steam ahead to create “facts on the ground” in the Middle East by working the Manhattan corridors of the United Nations. This is neither the first time, nor undoubtedly the last, that Palestinian leaders have succumbed to the delusion that Middle Eastern reality can be changed by irrelevant U.N. activity. The tactical ploys and counter-ploys are now flying around the U.N. compound. In the midst of all of the conflicting news reports we will see and hear, keep in mind one thing: this is more Broadway theater than a serious effort to achieve...

Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that “the first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only by means of a military force.” Today, failing to protect our national security inevitably endangers our economic prosperity by making us vulnerable to global adversaries. It is clear that President Obama does not agree with Smith’s wisdom. Obama’s policies are jeopardizing not only our national security and economy, but our constitutional sovereignty too. That is why I have been considering running for President. The Republican Party must...

Egypt's banned Muslim Brotherhood movement has unveiled its plans to scrap a peace treaty with Israel if it comes to power, a deputy leader said in an interview with NHK TV. Rashad al-Bayoumi said the peace treaty with Israel will be abolished after a provisional government is formed by the movement and other Egypt's opposition parties. "After President Mubarak steps down and a provisional government is formed, there is a need to dissolve the peace treaty with Israel," al-Bayoumi said. Egypt was the first Arab country to officially recognize Israel and sign a peace agreement with the Israeli government in...

Egyptian President Mubarak Reportedly Stepping Down

The UN Security Council and General Assembly were evacuated Tuesday because of a "suspicious odor," according to a UN spokesman.

<p>Law enforcement authorities in Portland, Ore., have concluded that there is insufficient evidence to proceed with a criminal prosecution of former vice president Al Gore after a massage therapist accused him of sexually assaulting her in a 2006 incident.</p> <p>The Multnomah County District Attorney's Office reached its decision after reviewing a follow-up Portland police investigation into the woman's allegations. The case was reopened in June after the massage therapist publicly asserted in a National Enquirer article that Gore tried to force her to have sex with him.</p>

If you’re thinking, “van who?”, don’t worry — you’re not alone. In one of the most undemocratic developments in recent history, the new leader of a half-billion Europeans is a name only 12% of them have even heard of. He was chosen unanimously by a council of other EU leaders, not by popular vote, and will take office January 1, 2010. Now that I’m home, I’m contemplating how quickly an unknown can rise to a position of great power. All this comes quickly on the heels of the historic passage of the EU “Lisbon Treaty” earlier this month. Noted the...

Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, has declared that "you don't ever want a crisis to go to waste." As reported here yesterday, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has been busy lately promoting the idea that Obama should move quickly once in the White House to turn various economic and political crises into opportunities to create a "new world order." (The words are Kissinger's.) Kissinger, never one to let a crisis got to waste, has been busy on an important new-world-order project in Russia with Vladimir Putin. Although it has gone virtually unreported in the U.S. media,...

NUCLEAR TEST? ** World faces growing risk of war: US intelligence chief ** ———————- An Israeli news service is reporting this morning that an earthquake in Iran last weekend may have been triggered by an Iranian nuclear weapons test, citing an Iranian nuclear scientist working on the project as its source. “This past Saturday night, southern Iran experienced what was reported as a significant earthquake — a seismic event measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale,” reports Arutz Sheva/Israel National News, attributing the story first to the Israel Insider website. ”Its epicenter was just north of the strategic Straits of Hormuz,...

NEW ORLEANS -- Louisiana officials and residents cast a wary eye on the Caribbean Sea as Tropical Storm Gustav strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane. Track The Hurricane At 11 a.m., the center of Gustav was located near latitude 17.9 north, longitude 72.4 west, or about 50 miles south of Port au Prince, Haiti. Gustav is moving toward the northwest at 9 mph. A gradual turn to the west-northwest and a decrease in forward speed is expected later on Tuesday, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 90 mph, with higher...

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea launched short-range missiles Thursday off its western coast, South Korea's Defense Ministry said, but it was still unclear how many rockets been fired. "We have intelligence that North Korea fired short-range missiles into the waters off its western coast, and we are trying to confirm how many were fired and what type of missiles they are," a Defense Ministry official said on customary condition of anonymity.

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Russia says it supports the lifting of political and economic sanctions imposed on the Islamic militant group Hamas over its refusal to recognize Israel's right to exist. The offer of support came during a final day of talks in Moscow with the exiled political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal. VOA's Lisa McAdams is in the Russian capital with details. Sergei Lavrov and Hamas supreme leader Khaled Mashaal, left, shake hands prior to talks in Moscow, 27 Feb. 2007 Sergei Lavrov and Hamas supreme leader Khaled Meshaal, left, shake hands prior to talks in Moscow, 27 Feb. 2007 Russian Foreign Minister...

JERUSALEM – Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to allow Muslims to construct a massive minaret on the Temple Mount will embolden the enemies of the Jewish state and signal that violence and terrorism are working, according to a group of prominent rabbinic leaders in Israel. The Rabbinical Congress for Peace, a coalition of more than 300 Israeli rabbinic leaders and pulpit rabbis, said in a statement today Olmert "does not have the moral or historic right to hand over even one inch of Israeli territory to foreigners." "The mere fact of giving up sovereignty of the Temple Mount –...