Free Republic

Published April 29, 2013 FoxNews.com WASHINGTON – SNIPPET: "On multiple occasions, first after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and again after 9/11, Congress mandated that immigration officials come up with a verifiable entry-exit system to track foreign visitors. To date, the Department of Homeland Security has failed, despite spending billions in tax dollars. The current system, known as USVISIT, does take fingerprints and photos of international visitors when they arrive at U.S. airports, but it has no similar biometric exit system. The goal is to match entry and exit records to determine which individuals comply with their visa and...

"Seven smuggled forged 'eye scan pass' seals into UAE Seven Uzbeks, including a woman, brought 60 seals through Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports" SNIPPET: "Seven Uzbeks, including a woman, allegedly smuggled 60 forged eye scan seals into the UAE through Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports and used them, the Dubai Criminal Court heard."

 SNIPPET: "We also confiscated in his car some forged stamps. He confessed to getting the stamps from MJA who in turn had got them from MYY,” he testified. 

Searching his two flats in Al Nahda area, police confiscated ten other eye scan pass seals in addition to...

(Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel met Pope Francis on Saturday and, apparently responding to his criticism of a heartless "dictatorship of the economy", called for stronger regulation of financial markets. On Thursday, Francis appealed in a speech for world financial reform, saying the global economic crisis had made life worse for millions in rich and poor countries. Merkel visited Rome for a few hours specifically to meet the pontiff and spoke with him privately in his library for 45 minutes, unusually long for a private papal audience. She told reporters afterwards that the scandals and excesses criticized by Francis...

Word is that both Israel and Turkey are seriously entertaining the notion of constructing an undersea pipeline to deliver Israeli natural gas to Turkey and, perhaps, hence to Europe. The Turks reportedly have expressed willingness to foot part of the estimated $2 billion bill. Such pipelines exist elsewhere in the world, most notably from Russia and from Norway. It is becoming evident that a veiled agenda underpinned the recent Turkish willingness to consider a rapprochement with Israel. Turkey, it appears, hankers after Israeli gas. The perceived Turkish softening was fueled by Israel’s offshore gas discoveries, a fact which nevertheless did...

A group of North Koreans claim to have hijacked a Chinese fishing boat, are holding hostages, and demand some 600,000 yuan in ransoms. The initial hijacking took place on May 6, but authorities are struggling to pin down exactly what happened. They are investigating the boat owner's claims that his ship and its crew were taken, but officials have been silent. North Korea isn't just fun-runs and basketball stars; there is a serious concern that the hijackers were in the nation's military, and may be harming their prisoners, as South China Morning Post reports: Yu [the boat owner] was not...

Hacker group Anonymous has been been pretty tight-lipped about its political beliefs — with operations in the organization’s name conducted against Western democracies, authoritarian countries like China, and Muslim countries like Egypt, Syria, and Iran. And, of course, Israel. But one thing has become clear in the lead-up to its next major hacking attack: Anonymous members are “gold bugs,” people who believe that the yellow metal is the proper method for the exchange of goods and services and advocate the use of precious metals as the proper currency for the sale and purchase of oil. That’s the main reason the...

The Justice Department’s seizure of Associated Press reporters’ phone records was reportedly one element of a “sweeping” federal investigation to find out who leaked classified information about a failed Al-Qaeda plot to bomb an American airliner. Now, the Obama administration has reportedly apologized to Israel for another leak of classified information to the media, one that occurred earlier this month and which Israeli officials are concerned could place Israeli lives at risk. Israel Radio’s diplomatic correspondent Chico Menashe reported Sunday morning (via the Jerusalem Post): American officials apologized to their Israeli counterparts for confirming that Israel was behind the airstrikes...

Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame, has rejected accusations from Washington that he was supporting a rebel leader and accused war criminal in the Democratic Republic of the Congo by challenging a senior US official to send a drone to kill the wanted man. ... "I told him: 'Assistant secretary of state, you support [the UN peacekeeping force] in the Congo. Such a big force, so much money. Have you failed to use that force to arrest whoever you want to arrest in Congo? Now you are turning to me, you are turning to Rwanda?'" he said. "I said that, since you...

A senior Hizbullah terrorist was among 20 members of the group who were killed in intense fighting in Syria on Sunday, Al Arabiya reports. According to the report, the Hizbullah terrorists were killed in the Syrian town of Qusayr, following clashes between Syrian rebels and regime forces who attempted to enter the town earlier in the day. Sources also told Al Arabiya that dozens of Hizbullah members were wounded during the fight and had been taken to hospitals in Beirut, Lebanon for treatment. .....

State TV says troops have captured key buildings in the town centre, a claim strongly denied by activists. Rebels say 50 people have been killed while state media says 70 "terrorists" are dead. Lebanese militants are said to be involved - Hezbollah siding with the government, Sunni gunmen with rebels. The town - close to the border with Lebanon - has great strategic value. Its control would give the government access from the capital to the coast. For the rebels, control of Qusair means they can come and go from Lebanon, says the BBC's Jim Muir, in Beirut. The assault...

A rising star in Britain’s Labour Party, described by some as the “British Barack Obama,” Chuka Umunna urged the United Kingdom to more aggressively forge ties with West Africa's fast-growing economies. During a trade mission to West Africa last week that included a stop in his father’s home country Nigeria, Umunna, a member of the British Parliament, dismissed the comparison to the United States president. … Umunna, 34, grew up in Streatham and worked as a lawyer before being elected to parliament in 2010. The son of an Irish mother and Nigerian father, he said he made seven or eight...

Local Conservative party campaigners, including the chairman of one constituency association, will this week pledge their support for Nigel Farage after one of David Cameron’s allies described grassroots Tories as “mad, swivel-eyed loons”. Mr Farage uses an advertisement in Monday's Daily Telegraph to urge Conservative voters to back Ukip. The “loons” description, he says, is “the ultimate insult” from a party leadership that has betrayed the trust of its own supporters. He writes in the advertisement: “Only an administration run by a bunch of college kids, none of whom have ever had a proper job in their lives, could so...

So somebody in State above her is talking to somebody above Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor at the White House at 10:00 at night on Friday night. Now we also know, Saturday morning, at a White House deputies meeting, all of the reference to terrorism are struck out of the CIA draft of the talking points. At a White House meeting. And I’ll tell you one last thing, on Friday there is a, there is just this weird email, it’s actually a summary of a Secure Video Conference. Significant people at the FBI, and the National intelligence, and in there,...

"You look at the whole Benghazi thing. You look at those talking points and the initial draft by the CIA very explicitly said we know that activists who have ties to Al-Qaeda were involved in the attack. Then you see what comes out a couple of days later and there is no reference to this. This is a business where you have to tell the truth and that did not happen here."

Even in the conservative press, it has become received wisdom that President Obama was AWOL on the night of September 11, after first being informed by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, in the late afternoon, that the State Department facility in Benghazi was under attack. You hear it again and again: While Americans were under attack, the commander-in-chief checked out, leaving subordinates to deal with the crisis while he got his beauty sleep in preparation for a fundraising campaign trip to Vegas. That is not true . . . and the truth, as we’ve come to expect with Obama, is almost...

Republicans owe Rice An Apology On Benghazi, Obama Adviser Says May 19, 2013 FoxNews.com (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews) (A2012) WASHINGTON – White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday Republicans owe Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, an apology for alleging she played a part in formulating the White House’s response to the attacks in Benghazi, Libya, last year that killed four Americans. Pfeiffer said on ABC’s “This Week” that the release of more than 100 pages of Benghazi emails and notes show “beyond a shadow of the doubt” that accusations she tried to change the narrative of...

You can argue that Republicans have blocked President Obama from doing just about anything. You can argue that he's had bad luck. You can argue that he isn't always the greatest orator. But you can't argue away that the Department of Justice took the unprecedented step of seizing phone records from the Associated Press. Or the flimsy rationale justifying drone attacks abroad and at home. Or the bizarre step the Pentagon has taken to expand the ability of the military to intervene in state and local matters. Or the fact that Guantanamo Bay is still open years after Obama vowed...

“The Jewish religion is under attack in Europe”, declared the Conference of European Rabbis president Pinchas Goldschmidt. Many polls (such as the study on behalf of the German Social Democratic Friedrich Ebert Foundation) bring an iconic number measuring the disaster: 150,000,000 Europeans have a delegitimizing and demonizing view of the State of Israel and its citizens. For a large sector of Europe, the cities, skyscrapers, hospitals, cinemas, and schools on that tiny sliver of land named "Israel" are merely real estate that will be restored to Islam once this malefic Jewish form is swept away. This is a popular mobilization...

Politico media writer Dylan Byers sought to add context to Paul Farhi’s “glowing profile” of CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson in Wednesday’s Washington Post. Byers suggested Farhi painted it as a David and Goliath story with Team Obama as Goliath. But there’s another Goliath, he wrote: CBS News executives who aren’t happy with Attkisson’s “Benghazi campaign” that’s “wading dangerously close” to advocacy: The second Goliath is CBS News, which has grown increasingly frustrated with Attkisson's Benghazi campaign. CBS News executives see Attkisson wading dangerously close to advocacy on the issue, network sources have told POLITICO. Attkisson can't get some...

This is a pretty horrific story that comes out of Afghanistan. The source for it is Mustafa Kazemi, an Indian war correspondent, who has been operating in Afghanistan since 2010 and has worked for AFP. Due to the horrific nature of the story, I am only excerpting a few parts of it. If you want to read the rest, you’ll have to follow the link. But keep in mind that child marriages like these are happening all the time, not just in Afghanistan, but increasingly even in Europe.

As our military moves into its second decade of fighting overseas, some in the media and on Capitol Hill have shamefully managed to both cover up an actual scandal over the death of four Americans in Benghazi and at the same time manufacture a scandal through their outrage over reports of sexual assault in the military. With barely contained vitriol, editorials, news articles, and political speeches have recently described these reports as an "epidemic." Top military leaders have been berated and slandered for "failing to understand the problem" and for creating a culture of rape by getting "their buddies" off...

The city council of a tiny rural hamlet in Somerset, England, has vetoed a plan to fly the flag of St. George because its links to the Christian Crusades in the Middle Ages may offend the town's Muslim residents. ... John Clements, vice president of the Royal Society of St. George, a patriotic organization, called the Radstock councilors' decision “nonsense” and a form of “censoring” of the national flag.

May 19, 2013 It Doesn’t Matter Where Obama was While Benghazi Happened, Says Obama Aide Daniel Greenfield Only crazy conspiracy theorists think that the Commander-in-Chief’s presence and attention count when an American diplomatic facility is under siege.VIDEO According to Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer, Obama’s whereabouts during the attack don’t matter. Oddly enough Bush taking the time to finish reading a children’s book to a class of nervous children did. WALLACE: with all due respect, you didn’t answer my question. what did the president do that night?PFEIFFER: kept up to date with the events as they were happening.WALLACE: he didn’t talk...

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Police shot dead a couple suspected to be terrorists after they threw four grenades, wounding five officers in an overnight stand-off, a police official said Sunday. Following a tip, investigators raided the apartment where the couple was staying in the Githurai Kimbo area on the outskirts of Nairobi Saturday evening and ordered them out of their house, said Boniface Mwaniki, the head of the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit. The couple refused to surrender, threw grenades and used their eight-month-old baby as a human shield, said Mwaniki. Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/news/world/article/Kenya-police-kill-terror-couple-4529019.php#ixzz2TkYgF2on

Israel is acting to prevent Syrian weapons from reaching Lebanon's Hizbullah and will continue to do so, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, AFP reports. His remarks came two weeks after air strikes near Damascus that were widely attributed to Israel, which a senior Israeli source said were aimed at preventing the transfer of sophisticated Iranian arms to Hizbullah, the Lebanese Shiite ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Netanyahu said the Middle East was going through its most sensitive period for decades, with the conflict in Syria at the center of the turmoil. "We are closely following developments and...

A violent mob, including priests, broke down barriers and attacked marchers at a rally to mark International Day against Homophobia in Tibilisi, Georgia. Attackers were heard screaming, "Kill them! Tear them to pieces," according to witnesses. The march, in favour of LGBT rights ended in chaos as police struggled to evacuate the 50 marchers from Tibilisi's Freedom Square. They were taken to safety by special forces. The rally was condemned earlier by Patriarch Ilia II, head of the Georgian Orthodox Church, but he urged people to behave and restrain from violence. On the morning of the rally, priests gathered...

According to Diane Abbott, Britain is facing a crisis of masculinity. In a speech made on Thursday under the auspices of the thinktank Demos, the shadow health minister warned of a generation of angry, inarticulate young men who had no idea of their role in society. Raised on a diet of pornography and consumerism, they were "caught between the stiff-upper-lip approach of previous generations" and the "pornified ideals" of a youth culture that featured Viagra as a party drug and promoted sexism and homophobia.More prone to depression and less well educated than young women, and perhaps jobless despite a degree,...

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It was not immediately clear who killed Zara Shahid Hussain, 59, a senior member of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI). Hussain "was leaving her home for some work when three gunmen attacked her. She thought they wanted to snatch her purse and handed it over to them but they killed her", Firdous Shamim, a local PTI leader, said. Police said all three gunmen escaped after the attack late on Saturday. "They shot her with one bullet near her chin and she could not survive," senior police official Nasir Aftab told AFP. Around 150 people were killed in the run-up to national...

The Syrian army has begun deploying advanced surface-to-surface missiles and has aimed them at Tel Aviv, the British Sunday Times reports. According to the report, Syria is preparing to strike Israel in case the Jewish State launches another attack on its territory. The army has received orders to strike central Israel in case additional attacks against Syria are carried out, according to the Sunday Times. The information was reportedly obtained by reconnaissance satellites that were tracking the Syrian forces. According to the report, Syria was deploying advanced Tishreen missiles, which are capable of carrying a warhead of a half a...

As June approaches, get ready for the official celebration of “Gay Pride Month” by US embassies abroad. If sodomy and same-sex marriage are constitutional rights, what is their relationship to American foreign policy? Despite the tremendous controversy regarding these issues within the United States, the Obama administration has gone ahead and placed them at the center of US diplomacy. Why? In Libido Dominandi, E. Michael Jones wrote that the rationalization of sexual misbehavior “could only calm the troubled conscience in an effective manner when it was legitimized by the regime in power… [which] went on in the name of high...

by John HillStand With Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio is facing an unprecedented campaign to recall him from office. This follows a re-election campaign last year which saw unprecedented amounts spent on both sides, as George Soros committed $10 million to oust "America's Sheriff". Joe was forced to spend his entire 'war chest' of $8 million to (barely) hold onto office - the closest race of his career. Why?Why is the Left in America so focused on a single county's Sheriff, and willing to spend Congressional-level funds to defeat him? Well for starters, Sheriff Joe is the biggest national symbol in...

A new investigation released by Wall Street Daily just revealed a disturbing pattern of price manipulation in the energy markets. The six-month investigation, conducted by renowned energy analyst, Karim Rahemtulla, was triggered by the incredible disparity in gas prices between the United States and Europe. The price of natural gas in the United States is presently about $4/mcf. Yet the price in Europe is upwards of $15/mcf. “Such mispricing simply cannot occur in an efficient market,” says Rahemtulla. For the global economy to function properly, the energy markets must be priced efficiently. It can be no other way. Any malfeasance...

Military Response Questioned in Benghazi Attack The latest Congressional hearing on the attack at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya focused on whether the U.S. military could have responded more quickly to end the assault. (May 8) WASHINGTON (AP) — Steady drips of information about a horrific night in Libya are fueling Republican arguments and ads designed to fire up the conservative base and undercut the Democrats' early favorite for president in 2016.Strategists in both parties disagree on the issue's power to influence elections next year and beyond. But after eight months of trying, Democrats are still struggling to move...

France’s “énarques” weren’t trained to succeed in the world but in central Paris ___ High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d76b5fcc-b83f-11e2-bd62-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz2Tgx8Ik00 The French Stalinist Maurice Thorez spent the second world war in Moscow, where he called himself “Ivanov”. When France was liberated, he came home and entered government. After Charles de Gaulle stepped down as French leader in 1946, Thorez picked up one of the general’s pet projects:...

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad said in a newspaper interview Saturday he won't step down before elections and that the United States has no right to interfere in his country's politics, raising new doubts about a U.S-Russian effort to get Assad and his opponents to negotiate an end to the country's civil war. In the capital Damascus, a car bomb killed at least three people and wounded five, according to Syrian state TV. It said bomb experts dismantled other explosives in the area. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an activist group, said eight people were killed,...

Afghanistan expects to begin the first commercial oil production in its history in a little under two months. The country's mining minister, Wahidullah Shahrani, has told the ABC processing will start at the Amu Darya basin in Afghanistan's north in July. The project is operated by the China National Petroleum Corporation and is expected to eventually supply Afghanistan with its domestic energy needs so it can stop importing oil. Mr Shahrani is in Australia for talks with Government officials and to attend mining development conferences in Sydney next week.

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Syrian strongman Bashar Assad said in a weekend interview to an Argentinean newspaper that Israel is assisting the rebels fighting to topple his regime. “Israel is directly supporting the terrorist groups in two ways,” he said. “Firstly it gives them logistical support, and it also tells them what sites to attack and how to attack them." Assad also told the Clarin newspaper said that rebels had attacked a radar station instrumental to Syria’s antiaircraft defenses against Israel, but gave no further details. The reporter asked Assad if he had any “self-criticisms." He replied: “It’s illogical to carry out self-criticism before...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite Democratic fears, predictions of the demise of President Barack Obama's agenda appear exaggerated after a week of cascading controversies, political triage by the administration and party leaders in Congress and lack of evidence to date of wrongdoing close to the Oval Office. "Absolutely not," Steven Miller, the recently resigned acting head of the Internal Revenue Service, responded Friday when asked if he had any contact with the White House about targeting conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for special treatment. "The president's re-election campaign?" persisted Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif. "No," said Miller.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The night of smoke, chaos, gunfire and grenades that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, is well-documented. Eight months later, it is the decisions made back in Washington that remain murky and in perpetual dispute. Why was a diplomatic outpost left so poorly protected? Should the Pentagon have rushed jets or special forces to the rescue when the assault began? Did President Barack Obama's administration obscure the true nature of the terrorist attack to help him get re-elected? Congressional Republicans are poking for evidence of incompetence and cover-up in the ashes of the Sept. 11 anniversary attack....

What would you be focusing on in the Benghazi investigation?” I spent many years in the investigation biz, so it’s only natural that I’ve been asked that question a lot lately.… So if I were investigating Benghazi, I’d be homing in on that 10 P.M. phone call. That’s the one between President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — the one that’s gotten close to zero attention.... We have heard almost nothing about what Obama was doing that night. Back in February, though, CNS News did manage to pry one grudging disclosure out of White House mendacity mogul Jay...

Bedouin tribes in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula implied on Thursday that they were better off living under Israeli rule and that they have been suffering since Israel withdrew from the region as part of the peace agreement with Egypt. The residents of the Sinai spoke to the Egyptian daily Al-Ahram, after local tribesmen kidnapped seven Egyptian security personnel near the city of El-Arish. The seven were kidnapped by an unknown group in north Sinai while en route to Cairo. Local residents said the kidnapping was "retaliation" by Bedouin tribesmen for heavy-handed security policies adopted by the Egyptian interior ministry. Mohamed El-Asati,...

There was a running joke in the fall of 2008 that John McCain should simply re-air Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m. phone call” ad, which highlighted Barack Obama’s lack of experience and meager knowledge of world affairs, and just tack on “I’m John McCain, and I approve this message” at the end of the ad. The point was that thanks to the bitter primary battle between the Clintons and Obama, Democrats had already developed the most effective lines of attack against Obama, and Republicans needed only to nod their heads in agreement. Something similar is taking place amid the several Obama...

Japan Maritime Self Defense Force warships JS Atago, foreground, and JS Shimokita, at Pearl Harbor naval base, Hawaii. The superstructure of a third Japanese warship, the helicopter carrier JS Hyuga, can be seen at right. On the deck of Shimokita are ground vehicles and helicopters – shrink-wrapped to protect against salt air -- that will take part in major amphibious warfare training in southern California.Warships from Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force have making stops at the American naval base at Pearl Harbor for more than two decades. But it’s going to seem strange, indeed, when Japanese ground troops clamor aboard...

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro admitted to knowing ‘with IDs and all’ who are the 900.000 Chavistas who crossed lines and did not vote for him in the 14 April election which anointed him as the successor of deceased Hugo Chavez. “When there is a man fallen in combat as was our commander (Chavez) strength must prevail. Instead of feeling defeated by sadness, we must defeat that sadness and overcome the lethargic feeling. We have identified the 900.000 compatriots with IDs and all…which meant that the gap was smaller, when the gap could have been good”, said Maduro during one of...

SEOUL, May 18 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Saturday launched three short range guided missiles into the sea off the Korean Peninsula's east coast, South Korea's Ministry of Defense said. The ministry said it detected two launches in the morning, followed by another in the afternoon. It said the missiles were fired in a northeasterly direction away from South Korean waters. "A more detailed analysis will be needed but the missiles launched may be a modified anti-ship missile or the KN-02 surface-to-surface missile derived from the Soviet era SS-21 that has a range of about 120 kilometers," a Seoul official...

Berlusconi's Bunga-Bunga Strippers Dressed Up as Barack Obama, Says Bellydancer Ruby Silvio Berlusconi's infamous "bunga-bunga" parties featured strippers dressed as US President Obama as well as the more conventional fare of nuns and nurses, according to court testimony by the Moroccan woman at the centre of the scandal. Karima el-Mahroug, 20, was giving evidence at the trial of three former aides to Berlusconi who are accused of procuring her and other women for prostitution. El-Mahroug, a former bellydancer, said she attended about half a dozen parties, using her nickname Ruby. One each occasion, Berlusconi had handed her an envelope containing...

Andrew McCarthy makes the case that the 10:00 PM phone call on September 11 last year between Hillary Clinton and President Obama may be the conversation that led to the bogus story of an anti-Muslim video setting off "demonstrations" in Benghazi that led to the deaths of Americans. Fraud flows from the top down, not the mid-level up. Mid-level officials in the White House and the State Department do not call the shots -- they carry out orders. They also were not running for reelection in 2012 or positioning themselves for a campaign in 2016. The people doing that were,...