Free Republic

In a video posted on her Facebook page on September 21, New York-based Egyptian-American activist Ayat Oraby called the Coptic church "a gang, striving to establish a Coptic mini-state," and "a full-fledged mafia," and described Pope Tawadros as "a criminal." Oraby called upon Muslims to participate in an economic boycott of Copts, saying that: "They must be made to understand that the crescent must be on top of the cross."

Bloomberg reports: Partners in Israel’s Leviathan field, the country’s largest natural gas reservoir, signed an export agreement with Natural Electric Power Co. of Jordan. Tel Aviv gas stocks rose. The partners, including Noble Energy Inc. and Delek Drilling-LP, will supply a gross 1.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas from the Leviathan field over a 15-year period, Noble said in a statement. Gross contract revenue is estimated to be about $10 billion.

shocking new video put out by the Islamic State shows the organization’s fighters shooting at least 100 captured male Iraqi civilians in a trench. The clip begins with the fighters shepherding a line of captured Iraqis into a trench. It then cuts to the civilians kneeling in a room being beaten by the fighters. They are then taken outside and lined up in a trench. Fighters execute them one by one, while slow dramatic jihadi music plays. The clip ends with ISIS fighters in uniform slowly walking down a road, as seen through the lens of night-vision goggles.

It isn’t news that the Islamic State has long been abusing and trafficking sex slaves – especially Yazidi girls – but it has been now discovered that the sex slaves of IS are being “sold in horrifying auctions to UK ally Saudi Arabia.” An eyewitness reported: “Dozens of women were being held in a large room, and it was not only Iraqis and Syrians trading women but also Saudis and Westerners, whose actual nationality was not clear. nationality was not clear. Western women have also been reported to be among the victims in keeping with the Islamic State’s practice of...

Concordia University professor Homa Hoodfar, who has been detained in Tehran's infamous Evin prison since June 6, has been released, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has confirmed. Hoodfar, who is 65 and suffers from a rare neurological disease that causes severe muscle weakness, was in hospital at one point before being returned to her cell, according to her family. They said she could barely walk or talk. The Iranian-Canadian anthropology professor was arrested while on a personal and research visit to Iran, her family said. "Canadians are relieved that Dr. Hoodfar has been released from jail and will soon be reunited...

Russia has been directly and repeatedly accused of war crimes at the UN security council in an unusually blunt session, as hopes of any form of ceasefire were flattened by the scale and ferocity of the Syrian regime’s assault on eastern Aleppo. The war crimes accusations centred on the widespread use of bunker-busting and incendiary bombs on the 275,000 civilians living in the rebel-held east of the city, weapons that Moscow’s accusers say were dropped by Russian aircraft.

MEXICO CITY -- A missing Mexican priest was found shot dead off the side of a highway in western Mexico days after he was kidnapped from his parish residence, state prosecutors said Sunday. He was the third Roman Catholic priest to be slain in Mexico in the last week. The Michoacan state Attorney General’s Office said in a statement that the Rev. Jose Alfredo Lopez Guillen’s body was found Saturday night in an area called Las Guayabas on the highway between Puruandiro and Zinaparo. Lopez was kidnapped last Monday, the same day authorities in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz...

Ah, there's nothing like a referendum or two to set the emotions swirling and stir up political havoc. Add a nasty election to the mix, and you have a savoury stew of rancid, small-state nationalism along Europe's southern flank. Let's start with the referendum vote in Republika Srpska, which took place on Sunday. This entity has a violent and sordid history. Officially it is part of Bosnia, and once it was part of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia cracked apart into warring pieces in 1991. On Jan. 9, 1992 the self-declared Republika Srpska, made up almost entirely of Bosnian Serbs, asserted its "independence"...

One hot-button issue in the first Presidential debate will be the Syrian and other refugees that are allowed into the country. The vetting process of asylum seekers for resettlement in the United States usually takes between 18 to 24 months. But to meet President Obama’s goal of bringing in “at least 10,000” more Syrian refugees by the end of 2016, the process was cut to 3 months. And on August 29, White House spokesman Josh Earnest announced, “this goal that was met a month ahead of schedule.”

Leaked documents with sensitive FBI data exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas reveal that 7,712 terrorist encounters occurred within the United States in one year and that many of those encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border. The incidents are characterized as “Known or Suspected Terrorist Encounters.” Some of the encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border at ports-of-entry and some occurred in between, indicating that persons known or reasonably suspected of being terrorists attempted to sneak into the U.S. across the border. In all, the encounters occurred in higher numbers in border states.

Russia and the West are fighting to decide whether Syria will be run by Sunni Islamists backed by Saudi Arabia or Shiite Islamists backed by Iran. This insane civil war has burned up countless lives, not to mention plenty of dollars, rubles, euros and pounds. The only certain winners of this war, once the dust has settled, will chant “Allahu Akbar” and call for the death of the infidels. Sadly this is nothing new. Russia got the PLO started before Bill Clinton decided to become its sugar daddy. Smuggling weapons to the Mujahedeen to fight the Russians got us into...

THE EDITOR, Sir: Aren't you just tired of all our government leaders making all these promises that they will 'make Jamaica great again', but has never made good on it? I have lived long enough to see more than seven elections, and Lord knows I have had it with all the promises of a paradisiac condition, a crime-free country, great health-care facilities, excellent schools with affordable, if not free, education. Equality for all. No corruption. Transparency in government and state businesses. When will I see any radical changes? Since Jamaica always emulates other First World countries, like the United States,...

When Hillary chastises Trump for supposedly being allied with Putin or claims that the Russians hacked the DNC email, she should really reflect on her own staff’s actions in aiding and abetting Putin’s intelligence gathering. Russian TV reports that the FBI discovered another security violation when US Diplomatic Security (DS) found a classified document from then Sec State Clinton’s briefing book left behind in a Russian hotel room. Monica Hanley, one of Hillary’s former aides, was given a diplomatic pouch with the Sec State’s briefing book and took the pouch to the suite of the Russian hotel she was sharing...

A mother-of-three has allegedly been drugged and raped by a gang of migrants – sparking violent demonstrations. The 26-year-old said she woke up in a strange house with cuts and bruises, and believes her drink had been spiked on a night out before she was abducted and sexually assaulted. Police arrested and bailed six men - aged between 20-30 - from Iraq, Syria and Bahrain over the September 4 attack in Sunderland. Far-right supporters organised a protest six days in the city after the alleged attack which turned violent. Those on the march, including members of the Sunderland Defence League,...

These holidays are the culmination of a period in which religion, faith in Allah, stringent observance of the commandments and the avoidance of sin, in addition to the vilification of infidels, are paramount. The new wave of knife stabbing terror in Israel this past week, almost in sync with the terror attacks in the USA, raises the question: "Why now?" The most facile answer is pointing to the Muslim "Id al Adha" - "holiday of offering" - that also took place last week. The holiday has great significance for Muslims because their entire calendar has only two holidays, both of...

UNITED NATIONS: Ecuador hopes that the October questioning of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, holed up in the country’s London Embassy since 2012, will mark the “beginning of the end” of the legal deadlock over case, Ecuador’s foreign minister said.

Congress is ironing out another of its continuing resolutions. Conservatives led by Ted Cruz are insisting that the resolution include language that would block the transition away from U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system. Donald Trump has backed Cruz in this fight. Why is ongoing U.S. oversight so important? Because, as Rick Manning, president of Americans for Limited Government, says: Continuing U.S. oversight of the Internet’s domain name system protects the First Amendment rights of everyone who uses the Internet and prevents the creation of a global monopoly that one day could censor the Internet absent U.S. governance....

Russia is partnering with the Syrian government to carry out war crimes, Britain's ambassador to the UN has said. Speaking at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council, Matthew Rycroft said the push by the US and Russia to stop the fighting is "nearing the end of its life". But UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged world powers to redouble their efforts to end Syria's "nightmare". He said: "What excuse is there for anything less than determined action to stop the mayhem? "How much longer will all those with influence allow such cruelty. "I urge all involved to work harder...

Syrian forces pounded rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Sunday, killing at least 85 people and wounding more than 300 others, an activist group reported. The bombardment destroyed residential centers, overwhelmed hospitals and angered diplomats meeting at the United Nations. "Everyone in Aleppo is depressed," an activist on the ground told CNN. "They don't know what they have done to become targets for warplanes. Fear is clear in the eyes of anyone you see walking the streets of Aleppo. Yesterday I saw a woman walking on the street and crying , no clear reason, just crying."Hundreds of airstrikes have pummeled the city,...

As Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and GOP nominee Donald Trump square off for their first debate of the election season, one question the candidates will tackle is the state of the American military. The Clinton camp has touted America’s military prowess as the best in the world, while the Trump campaign has claimed that the Obama White House has decimated U.S. forces, allowing for the rise of near-peer states such as Russia and China. Top military officials and analysts, however, say the answer lies somewhere in the middle, saying the U.S. military maintains its world superiority but proposed cuts...