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There have been fresh calls for the Republic of Ireland to rejoin the Commonwealth after the success of the recent State visit. Ireland left the Commonwealth in 1949, but recent historic moves including the visit of President Michael D. Higgins to the UK have reopened the debate. Senior Conservative MP Michael Fabricant said yesterday that the proposal “is not so mad as it might at first seem”. “If a country like the Republic of Ireland joined the Commonwealth, what greater message could be sent to countries facing political upheaval and disputes on the other side of the world than an...

US President Barack Obama has assured Japan that islands at the centre of its territorial dispute with China are covered by a bilateral defence treaty. In an interview ahead of his Asian tour, Mr Obama said the US would oppose any attempt to undermine Japan's control over the islands.

Hans-Olaf Henkel speaks about when, not if, he will take his place in the European Parliament this spring. […] The former head of IBM Europe and one-time president of the German Federation of Industries is now the number two candidate on the list for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party. […] He pointed to the British Conservatives as the AfD’s “preferred partner” in the European Parliament following the elections and rejected any cooperation with Nigel Farage’s UKIP. […] While certainly skeptical of the euro, the party is not “Europe-skeptic.” “We are a party advocating a more democratic but leaner Brussels,”...

Paris (AFP) - Former US president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday the West should not impose sanctions that would hurt the Russian people over their leaders' actions in Ukraine. "So far, we have limited the sanctions to the leadership of Russia, and I think that is the proper approach," the Nobel peace laureate told AFP on the sidelines of a discussion in Paris on climate change. "I don't think we would go so far as to impose The statesman was taking part in a meeting with students as a member of The Elders group set up to promote human rights around...

U.S. Army paratroopers are arriving in Poland to begin a series of military exercises in four countries across Eastern Europe to bolster allies in the wake of Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula last month. Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said Tuesday that the exercises will last about a month, and initially involve about 600 troops. An Army company of about 150 soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team based in Vicenza, Italy, will start the exercises Wednesday in Poland. Additional Army companies will head to Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and are expected to arrive by Monday...

Finmeccanica is proposing that the OTO Melara 76mm gun be configured onto the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship as part of an effort to improve the lethality and survivability of the shallow-water , multi-mission vessel. The naval artillery piece would replace the existing 57mm weapon now on board the LCS, per the existing proposal, said Eric Lindenbaum, vice president of Navy and Maritime programs for DRS Technologies. OTO Melara and DRS Technologies are both subsidiaries for the Italian defense company, Finmeccanica SpA. Amidst an ongoing effort to develop alternative proposals for a new small surface combatant, Navy officials are busy exploring...

German rapper turned Islamist militant killed in Syria suicide attack BEIRUT // A German former rapper who joined jihadists fighting in Syria has been killed in a suicide bombing carried out by rival fighters. Denis Mamadou Cuspert, who rapped under the name Deso Dogg but took on the name Abu Talha Al Almani in Syria, was reported to have been killed in a suicide attack on Sunday in an eastern province. He was a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and was reportedly killed in a double suicide bombing carried out by Al Nusra Front,...

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama is getting a number of critical report cards about his foreign and domestic policies lately -- signs that America is tiring of his presidency. Here at home, Janet Yellen, in her first monetary policy address as the head of the Federal Reserve Board, said the labor markets were still weak, and that it will likely take two years or more before the U.S. fully recovers from its recession. Ouch. If Yellen's forecast proves right, this means it will have taken Obama's administration nearly eight years to lift our economy out of its long and painful lethargy....

WASHINGTON — America’s diplomats and generals aren’t alone in watching the unfolding conflict between Russia and neighboring Ukraine. ... Ukraine is the world’s third-largest corn exporter and sixth-largest wheat exporter. Russia is the world’s fifth-biggest wheat exporter _ and a large buyer of U.S. corn and poultry products. ... “This is a region where we have been facing stiff competition from Ukraine,” said Thomas Sleight, the president and CEO of the U.S. Grains Council, which develops markets for U.S.-grown corn and sorghum. “Longer term, everyone is waiting to see what effect credit availability will have on Ukrainian farmers’ willingness to...

Illegal arms were shipped to Syrian rebels from Libya and this could be the reason Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton lied and claimed the attack on the consulate was the result of a video. Seymour Hirsch published an investigative report stating that there is an addendum to the Senate Intelligence Committee report which explains what the CIA was doing in Benghazi. Our government was shipping arms from Libya through Turkey to Syrian rebels before we realized they were al-Qaida. The reason the government lied was probably to conceal an illegal operation to arm Syrian rebels. Ambassador Stevens was the coordinator....

KIEV — Ukraine's acting president called for an anti-terrorist operation to be relaunched in the east of the country on Tuesday after the body of a local politician from his own party was found showing signs of torture.

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - Syrian Jihadis ‘Take Aim’ at Christian ToddlerPosted By Raymond Ibrahim On April 22, 2014 @ 12:30 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments According to Sham Times and other Arabic websites, jihadi social media networks posted the above picture of a child sitting on the ground while surrounded by armed men pointing their rifles at him.  The caption appearing with the picture, purportedly posted by a supporter of the Free Syrian Army, is “Our youngest hostage from among the hostile sects of Kessab.”Kessab is a predominantly Christian Armenian village in Syria near the Turkish border.  Earlier it...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://www.frontpagemag.com - The Left Renews Its Vows with MoscowPosted By William R. Hawkins On April 21, 2014 @ 12:35 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | No Comments There were many on the Left in the West who lamented the collapse of the Soviet Union as much as did Vladimir Putin. They saw the USSR as the main restraint on U.S. imperialism; helping to arm and support hostile Third World regimes and creating a zone of “peace” outside the reach of capitalism. The leftist view of the world did not change just because the Soviet empire disintegrated. Its...

Since he took over Crimea, President Vladimir Putin has seen his popularity soar and his opposition fall silent. So when the U.S. vice president told Russia to defuse tensions in Ukraine, Putin had few reasons to listen. But now Putin, with his approval rating at 80 percent, no longer appears willing to tolerate any criticism. Chillingly, Putin has begun to cast his critics as "national traitors," an intimation that anyone who opposes the Kremlin is serving the interests of the West. He has compared Russians who oppose his aggressive actions in Ukraine to the Bolsheviks, who took advantage of Russia's...

OTTAWA – The diplomatic chess game between Canada and Russia over the Ukraine crisis continued Tuesday, with the Kremlin ordering the expulsion of a senior Canadian diplomat stationed in Moscow. Russia ordered the removal of the first secretary at the Canadian embassy in retaliation for the expulsion of a Russian military attache from Ottawa earlier this month, said a Canadian government source, not authorized to speak on the record. The Harper government also called in the Russian ambassador for a diplomatic dressing-down last week as pro-Russian gunmen seized government buildings in several eastern Ukrainian cities following Russia’s annexation of the...

THE Abbott Government will purchase 72 advanced American-built stealth fighter jets to spearhead the nation’s defence for the next half century. The $12.4 billion through-life outlay, to be announced in Canberra today by the Prime Minister, is the biggest defence purchase in Australian history and includes every aspect of the system from hangars to missiles. The so-called “fifth generation” JF-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) planes will be deployed in three operational squadrons and a training squadron based at RAAF Williamtown near Newcastle in NSW and RAAF Tindal near Katherine in the Northern Territory. About $1.6 billion will be spent...

Acting president orders new anti-terrorism operation after a local politician was found dead with signs of torture. Last updated: 22 Apr 2014 22:05 Ukraine's acting president has ordered a military operation against pro-Kremlin separatists in the east of the country, after the body of a local politician from his own party was found showing signs of torture. "I demand the resumption of effective counter-terrorism measures to protect Ukrainian citizens in the east from terrorism," Oleksandr Turchinov said on Tuesday, according to a statement from his other office as parliamentary speaker. Turchinov said that "brutally tortured" bodies had been found near...

KUALA LUMPUR: The probe into the mysterious disappearance of the Malaysian jet is now looking at the possibility that the plane may have landed somewhere as no debris has been found so far, a media report has said. A report in the New Strait Times quoting sources within the international team probing the disappearance said that among the areas it was revisiting was the possibility that the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had landed elsewhere, instead of ending up in the southern Indian Ocean. "We may have to regroup soon to look into this possibility if no positive results come back...

Drivers in the U.S. are facing rising gasoline prices ahead of summer-vacation season, just as refiners here are shipping more gas to other countries. A new pipeline, built to release a glut of crude oil that was stuck in the middle of the country, is now feeding oil to refineries on the Gulf Coast that churn out gasoline and diesel. While these fuels still make their way to the Southeast and the East Coast, growing amounts are being sold to Mexico, the Netherlands, Brazil and other countries. The push into these markets has been spurred by the U.S. oil boom....

The Eurofighter Typhoon’s proposed conformal fuel tank (CFT) configuration has entered windtunnel testing in the UK, partner company BAE Systems has revealed. BAE says it is “currently assessing the aerodynamic characteristics of carrying two fuselage-mounted conformal fuel tanks on the Typhoon aircraft”, using a high-speed windtunnel at its Warton site in Lancashire. “This testing will help to accelerate the clearance process for such tanks to be integrated on to Typhoon, offering increased range and flexibility to the aircraft,” the company adds. BAE Systems A new configuration item for the Tranche 3 production standard Typhoon, the conformal structures would free up...