Free Republic

CARACAS: President Hugo Chávez, buffeted by falling oil prices that threaten to damage his efforts to establish a Socialist-inspired state, is quietly courting Western oil companies once again.

WASHINGTON — After focusing on the ailing economy, President-elect Barack Obama stepped into some of the hottest foreign policy issues this weekend, confirming a clear policy of engagement with Iran, vowing to press immediately for Middle East peace and saying flatly that “we are going to close Guantanamo.” Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” Mr. Obama reiterated his intention to work directly with Iran — a country whose president has called for Israel’s destruction — to improve relations and halt a nuclear program that Tehran describes as peaceful but which the West believes is not. But he added that Iran would...

<p>A secret Israeli plan for airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facility was scuttled last year when the United States rebuffed Israel in its request to fly through Iraqi airspace, according to a New York Times report on a covert U.S. program.</p>

U.S. Rejected Aid for Israeli Raid on Iranian Nuclear Site By DAVID E. SANGER WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials. White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to...

excerpt: 'Yes We Can' — Change for the Americas Coming from Below Hemispheric resistance to the first attempt by the U.S. to force the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) on every nation on this continent led to its eventual defeat at the IV Summit of the Americas, held in Argentina in 2005. The organizers of the April 2009 V Summit of the Americas had hoped to focus on a social agenda of providing a decent living for all those who call the “Americas” their home. The emergence of the PPA, or Bush’s Plan B for the FTAA, represents...

OPEC's top producer says oil-producing states in the Middle East will not respond to Iran's call to halt crude supplies to Israeli supporters. "The oil producers who need their income ... are not going to do that," Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said at a Wednesday news conference. "The use of oil, especially at this time, is an idea that is at least past its worth, he said. "The important thing, oil is not a weapon. You can't reverse a conflict by using oil."

Iran has told Egypt it is ready to treat people wounded in the Israeli assault on Gaza and is seeking permission to set up a field hospital nearby, the Iranian Foreign Ministry said Monday. Iranian officials have condemned Israel for its attacks and expressed support for the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, criticizing what they say is the silence of some Arab states. Egypt, the only Arab state to border Gaza, has been a focus for protests by hardline Iranians who say Cairo has not done enough to help the Palestinians. Egypt has partly blamed Hamas for the violence because it...

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's military leaders approved a plan by the navy on Sunday to station warships permanently in friendly ports across the globe. Underfunded since the 1991 break up of the Soviet Union , the Russian navy has been reasserting itself over the last year by chasing Somali pirates around the coast of east Africa and steaming across the Atlantic to visit allies in South America. "The General Staff has given its position on this issue and it fully supports the position of the (Navy's) main committee," deputy chief of staff Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told RIA Novosti news agency....

Nothing Screams "Drill Here Drill Now" more than this story. Mirfeysal Bagherzadeh, a brigadier-general of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and head of one of the country's "Islamic Police" called for a repeat of the 1972 Oil Embargo. He demanded that OPEC Countries should cut off of Oil Supplies to Israel's allies. Thirty-six years ago, the Islamic countries shut off Oil supplies to the US because of friendship with Israel. In the intervening years we have done nothing to prevent another embargo. We have enough Oil reserves to supply the US with fuel for over 100 years, yet we still refuse...

DAMASCUS (AFP) – Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Saturday met Iran's Supreme National Security Council chief Saeed Jalili to discuss the situation in the Gaza Strip, the official SANA news agency reported. It said Jalili, who arrived in Damascus on Friday night, and Assad held talks on "the dangerous situation the Palestinian people of Gaza are going through because of the Israeli aggression." They discussed the "consequences on security and stability in the region of the Israel's aggression continuing" and "ways Islamic countries can force Israel to immediately stop the massacres against the Palestinian people, end the Gaza blockade and...

For the first time since the operation in Gaza got underway, IDF artillery cannons started to shell targets in the Strip. IDF artillery cannons began pounding the eastern sector of the Gaza Strip around 4 pm Saturday. Ynet correspondent Ron Ben-Yishai reported that portable artillery batteries are engaging in a heavy bombardment of the area. This is the first time in three years that the IDF has fired artillery shells at Gaza targets. Most shells are landing in what the Palestinians characterize as the "security zone" adjacent to the Gaza Strip fence. The IDF is targeting rocket launching sites in...

The truth of the matter is that when it comes to her enemies, Israel has a very tiny margin of error. What makes that particularly dangerous is the most radical of its Hamas, Hezballah and Iran, enemies do not hate Israel because they want to live on the land, they hate Israel because they are a non-Muslim contamination of their caliphate and their society. These are societies that are trying to build an earth that is ruled by Shariah Law and Israel is a constant reminder of the freedom and democracy that is NOT offered in a Muslim society. Hell,...

NEW DELHI: Pakistan on Friday was back to its intransigent ways, batting aside India's demand for action against perpetrators of 26/11 and putting paid to any hope that it might bend under international pressure. The defiance came through clearly through the statements of Pakistan's foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi who ruled out extradition of any terrorist to India, while audaciously declaring that Pakistan had not detained the wanted jihadi leader Maulana Masood Azhar. Not just that, he claimed that Pakistan did not even know where Azhar was. In fact, Qureshi had the gall to declare, "There is no terrorist infrastructure...

Little coverage has been given to Israel's REAL opponent in this conflict IRAN. The Islamic Republic created by Jimmy Carter is described as one of the chief arms provider of Hamas, but their control of the terrorist group go WAY beyond giving them weapons to kill with. Dr. Walid Phares believes that Iran deliberately pushed Hamas to provoke Israel at a time "between" the two Presidential administrations and before the Israeli and Palestinian elections: Timing the Hamas end to the cease fire between two American presidencies in Washington and just before the Israeli and Palestinian elections, the Iranian Mullahs thought...

ISRAEL has taken out its most senior Hamas scalp, Nizar Rayan, dispensing with efforts to avoid civilian casualties to kill him at home with family, as its bombardment of the Gaza Strip entered a seventh day. Israeli warplanes yesterday pounded about 20 targets, including a mosque in Gaza, as Hamas ordered a "day of wrath" against Israel over the killing of Rayan, who died with his four wives and 11 of his children. Officials warned Hamas had acquired dozens of Iranian-made Fajr-3 missiles, raising fears the nuclear warheads at Dimona, 30km east of Beersheba, had fallen within the Islamic militants'...

That's a view emerging from the conservative end of the spectrum of Middle East policy thinkers here at a time when the pro-Israel community is grappling with how to deal with the issue between presidential administrations. John Bolton, the former Bush administration U.N. ambassador and nuclear proliferation negotiator, raised eyebrows when he said as much at a forum two weeks ago at the American Enterprise Institute, where he is a fellow. This week he elaborated in a conference call organized by The Israel Project. "I think unfortunately it's pretty close to inevitable," Bolton said, referring to Tehran's developing a nuclear...

<p>Russia faces a particularly nasty version of the global recession (at a minimum), and perhaps an economic "perfect storm." Regardless of how bad its economy gets, two broad political trends, each carrying profound implications for Russia's foreign policy and U.S.-Russian relations, are bound to emerge.</p>

BEIJING, Dec. 28 (Xinhua) -- The world has undergone remarkable changes this year, but international security situation on the whole remained stable with "peace" and "development" prevailing as the themes of the times. In 2008, the world has continued moving toward multi-polarization, resulting in a distinctive shift of international forces. Globalization is developing in depth and regional cooperation is gathering momentum. The world has been confronted with one hotspot issue after another and non-traditional threats are increasing. The world economic growth took a turn for the worse due to the outbreak of the global financial crisis. WORLD MULTI-POLARIZATION STRENGTHENED In...

The United States and Russia are bidding hard against each other to give the Lebanese army heavy weapons, a contest which Israeli diplomacy has failed to deter, DEBKAfile's military sources report. Defense ministry official Amos Gilead arrived in Moscow Friday, Dec. 19 only to watch his train leaving the station: Sophisticated Russian S-300 air defense systems were already speeding toward Tehran to guard its nuclear sites and MiG-29 fighter jets had been pledged to Lebanon. In Washington, too, Israeli diplomats pleaded in vain with Bush administration leaders to refrain from giving Lebanon tanks and a fleet of combat helicopters. Ten...

The Bush administration moved Wednesday to clamp down financially on a New York City business suspected of acting as a front company for Iran's Bank Melli, which has been accused of providing support to Iran's nuclear program. "This scheme to use a front company set up by Bank Melli - a known proliferator - to funnel money from the United States to Iran is yet another example of Iran's duplicity," said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department's under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence.