Free Republic

American C-130 military transport aircraft made "multiple" airdrops of weapons, ammunition and medical supplies to Kurdish fighters fending off Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in the strategic Syrian town of Kobane, despite Turkey labeling the Kurds "terrorists." According to US Central Command on Monday, the drops consisted of equipment from Kurdish authorities in Iraq, and were "intended to enable continued resistance against Isil's (ISIS - ed.) attempts to overtake Kobane," reports BBC. The US-led coalition against ISIS has already conducted over 135 airstrikes against ISIS over the past several weeks to defend Kobane, located strategically along the Syrian and Turkish border....

Taiwan's navy successfully test-fired two anti-ship missiles from a submarine, in the first such exercise since the weapons were acquired from the United States. The Harpoon missiles were launched from Hai Hu (Sea Tiger), a Dutch-built conventional submarine, during a drill last week, the Liberty Times and the United Daily News said, citing unnamed naval sources. The navy started taking delivery of the missiles last year to arm two submarines. The missiles, which have a range of 278 kilometers, would boost the attack capabilities of the two submarines previously only armed with torpedoes with a limited range, naval sources were...

Fifty years ago, the world woke up to news the nation - then at odds with Moscow and Washington - had detonated its own atomic bomb China's first atomic test on October 16, 1964, in Xinjiang. Mao wanted to prove the nation was a global power. Photo: SCMP Pictures Fifty years ago yesterday, China detonated its first atomic bomb, joining the United States, Soviet Union, Britain and France as the only nuclear powers at the time. The explosion in Lop Nur in eastern Xinjiang paved the way for the nation's further development of nuclear weapons and its emergence as a...

STOCKHOLM – The Swedish military has presented photographic evidence of a mysterious “foreign vessel” off the coast of Stockholm but rejected reports it was on the “hunt” for a damaged submarine. Ever since the armed forces received a tip-off about a “man-made object” off the coast of Stockholm on Friday, 200 men, several stealth ships, minesweepers and helicopters have been searching the sea around islands about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of the Swedish capital. “This is not ours, it’s a foreign vessel,” Rear Admiral Anders Grenstad told reporters, pointing to a grainy photo taken on Sunday morning by a...

Representatives of Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv confirmed on Sunday evening that treated Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh's daughter. The hospital said that Haniyeh's daughter had been admitted for a number of days, noting that she was one of over a thousand Gazans that the hospital treats every year.

The Bible says if your enemy is hungry, feed him, and if he is thirsty, give him something to drink—doing so will “heap burning coals” of shame on his head. But there is no evidence that the militants of the Islamic State, widely known as ISIS or ISIL, feel any sense of disgrace or indignity (and certainly not gratitude) receiving charity from their foes. Quite the reverse, the aid convoys have to pay off ISIS emirs (leaders) for the convoys to enter the eastern Syrian extremist strongholds of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, providing yet another income stream for ISIS militants,...

The U.S. military said late Sunday that it had dropped weapons, ammunition, and medical supplies to Kurdish forces battling to hold the Syrian border town of Kobani against Islamic State militants. The airdrops were the first of their kind and followed weeks of U.S. and coalition airstrikes in and near Kobani. Earlier Sunday, U.S. Central Command said that it had launched 11 airstrikes overnight in the area. CentCom said U.S. C-130 cargo planes made multiple drops of arms and supplies provided by Kurdish authorities in Iraq. It said they were intended to enable continued resistance to Islamic State efforts to...

Obama Sees an Iran Deal That Could Avoid Congress By DAVID E. SANGER OCT. 19, 2014 WASHINGTON — No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it. Even while negotiators argue over the number of...

The bidding process for the 2022 Olympics was a disaster for the International Olympic Committee. Democratic nations are no longer buying the argument that hosting the games is a wise investment. Every potential 2022 host city with a democratic government eventually pulled out of the bidding, many over economic concerns, leaving Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the IOC's only two options. Academics have been saying for years that hosting the Olympics doesn't make economic sense. The costs are typically larger than expected, the infrastructure needed for a big sporting event isn't the same as the infrastructure needed for daily life,...

<p>Louise Troh, whose fiance Thomas Eric Duncan,became the first person in the U.S. to be diagnosed with Ebola, says she and her family are showing no signs of the deadly disease after a 21-day quarantine.</p> <p>Duncan died on October 8.</p>

The collapse in oil prices is already a major cause of concern for countries heavily reliant on exports of the commodity. For some, it could be a matter of avoiding a severe recession. Here's why: For governments in oil-exporting countries to meet their spending commitments they need oil to remain above a certain price. With oil prices under $87 a barrel, countries that rely on high oil prices, including Venezuela, Russia, and Saudi Arabia, may have a reason to be concerned. This chart shows the price per barrel that the six most exposed countries need to meet their national budgets....

No one knows if the Obama administration will manage in the next five weeks to strike what many in the White House consider the most important foreign policy deal of his presidency: an accord with Iran that would forestall its ability to make a nuclear weapon. But the White House has made one significant decision: If agreement is reached, President Obama will do everything in his power to avoid letting Congress vote on it.

After six 10-hour workdays a week at a nail salon, Gloria Chocoj picks up her children from the baby sitter, walks them home and begins her evening routine: cooking dinner, helping with homework, giving baths before bedtime and packing school lunches. It is a full schedule she has tackled alone since December — after her husband, Jose Estrada Lopez, who entered the country illegally from Guatemala 14 years ago, was picked up by immigration officials. His arrest and detention in Elizabeth forced Chocoj to get a full-time job and become the sole provider and caregiver of their three young children....

A Nazi-themed beauty pageant for Russian women who hate Jews which has been dubbed 'Miss Hitler 2014' has sparked outrage on social media. Attractive female Nazis who enjoy taking steamy 'selfies' are being encouraged to apply to the competition on social media site, VKontakte. They have been asked to post a Nazi-themed selfie and write under their photo why they 'love and revere the Third Reich of Adolf Hitler' - a regime that killed more than six million people...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) on Sunday dismissed President Obama’s newly appointed Ebola czar as a “political operative” without the medical background necessary for the job — and he urged Americans to ignore the judgment of government health officials because they “are repeating the administration’s talking points.” Cruz is one of a number of politicians calling for a more drastic response to the disease which, to date, has infected two Americans, both nurses who cared directly for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who contracted the disease in his home country and fell ill in Texas. Cruz’ and other Republicans have...

Hunkered in scrubland at the western edge Kobane, their clothes stained with sweat, and the blood splatters of wounded comrades, the rebel commander and his men believed they had made their last stand. But then the US Air Force struck: a bombardment that turned the tanks of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) into smoking wrecks and transformed the inexorable advance on this Syrian town into a rout. Firas Kharaba, 39, the leader of Liwa al-Kassas, or “Retribution brigade”, who was returning wounded fighters for treatment in Turkey, provided a first-hand, account of the epic battle for...

The stela is an extraordinary finding that offers a treasure trove of data to historians and philologists. Excavations around the Hecatomnus Mausoleum in the western province of Mugla’s Milas district have unearthed a written stela that dates back over two millennia. The stela is an extraordinary finding that offers very important data to historians and philologists, according to academics. The stela, which is estimated to have been written for the ruler of its era, is in the poetry format and the longest among other similar classical-era findings. According to information provided by the Milas Uzunyuva Project Epigraph Professor Christian Marek,...

An Arab Israeli doctor has been killed fighting for the Islamic State group in Syria, Israel's Shin Bet domestic security service said on Sunday. The agency said Othman Abu al-Qiyan, who studied medicine in Jordan and worked as an intern at an Israeli hospital, had died in the fighting in August. His brother Idris had been arrested by Israeli security forces in April and charged the following month with aiding Othman and another relative, Shafiq Abu al-Qiyan to travel to Syria via Turkey to join IS. All three were from the Bedouin village of Hura in Israel's southern Negev desert,...

(CNSNews.com) – Turkey’s president on Sunday rejected U.S. proposals to arm Syrian Kurds fighting against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS/ISIL) near the Turkish border, shortly after the White House said he and President Obama had pledged to “strengthen cooperation” against the jihadists. “It would be wrong for the United States, with whom we are friends and allies in NATO, to talk openly and to expect us to say ‘yes’ to such a support to a terrorist organization,” said President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. His comments were the latest sign that Turkey and the U.S. are far from being...

The announcement by Sweden’s new prime minister that his government plans to extend recognition to a “Palestinian” state raises major questions in both international and United Nations law. Israelis are frequently asked: “Why is Israel opposed to recognizing a Palestinian state? Detach yourselves from the Palestinians like the French detached themselves from Algeria and the two states will live in peace with each other as was originally envisaged under the 1947 Partition Resolution...”