Free Republic

In October Cuba’s communist government said citizens could open bank accounts that receive dollars, yen, euros and other European currencies. They will be able to use the money to buy imported goods from new state-owned shops, called Tiendas Moneda Libremente Convertible (or convertible-currency shops), where prices are given in dollars. More than 70 are planned. This ends a ban on dollar transactions introduced in 2004.

The U.S. House approved a Democrat-backed resolution Friday calling for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- but did so without support from the four far-left freshmen congresswomen known as "the Squad."

On December 4, Moscow’s Kuntsevsky District Court continued hearing the case against 21-year-old Higher School of Economics (HSE) student and libertarian YouTube personality Egor Zhukov. Zhukov stands accused of issuing public calls for extremism: Prosecutors have argued that his videos on nonviolent resistance were motivated by “political hatred and enmity to the constitutional structure extant in the Russian Federation” as well as a desire to destabilize the country’s social and political order. Zhukov’s case, one of many that were brought forward during this summer’s wave of election protests in Moscow, has attracted widespread attention throughout the Russian opposition. Many of...

By the first week of March 1915, food supplies inside the besieged fortress of Przemyśl were almost exhausted. Most of the horses that could be spared had been eaten. Bran, sawdust and bone meal were used to eke out the dwindling stock of flour. Cats were nowhere to be seen – they too had been eaten. A middle-sized dog fetched 20 crowns, if its owner could be persuaded to part with it. Even mice were being traded. The hospital was filled to overflowing with collapsing people. As one of the doctors tending them observed, the most shocking thing about the...

A Russian village is under siege from at least 56 ravenous polar bears that have gathered on the outskirts of the remote outpost. Remarkable images and footage show how Ryrkaypiy is now in virtual lockdown over the worrying predator invasion. All public events have been cancelled and children were given extra protection as they travel to and from kindergarten and school. Special bear patrols are trying to stop the 'hungry' bears entering residential areas. So far the invasion is on the outskirts of the village - which has a population of 766 - in Russia's easternmost Chuktoka region, where the...

Somewhere in the Carmel hills of northern Israel, diamond exploration company Shefa Yamim hopes to uncover the exact spot where faith meets science. Inspired by the words of a revered rabbi who prophesized that precious stones were divinely buried in the area, the firm has been mining for about a decade along the steep hills and lush valleys that surround the city of Haifa. Now, Shefa Yamim, the first and only diamond explorer in Israel, says it has found strong signs that significant diamond deposits are indeed hidden in the Holy Land, surprising many who had dismissed the mission as...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg denied a Justice Department effort to block the release of any communications between former FBI General Counsel James Baker and Michael Sussmann, a Perkins Coie law partner and former DOJ attorney, who reported met with Baker to share information targeting Donald J. Trump during the presidential campaign. While at Perkins Coie, Sussmann represented the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the time Perkins Coie secretly paid for the development of the anti-Trump dossier the DOJ used to obtain FISA warrants to spy on...

December 2015 was a pivotal month in many respects. During the first week of December 2015, Donald Trump began to establish a substantial lead over his Republican primary opponents. Vice President Joseph Biden traveled to Ukraine to announce, on December 7th, a $190 million program to “fight corruption in law enforcement and reform the justice sector,” but behind the scenes explicitly linked a $1 billion loan guarantee to the firing of Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, who had been investigating the energy company Burisma, which employed Biden’s son Hunter. On December 9, 2015, the reported whistleblower Eric Ciaramella held a meeting...

A Russian television network has given a rare glimpse into one of three carefully guarded briefcases that Moscow could use to trigger nuclear strikes. The briefcase, which has a personalised key code, a flash card and is under constant supervision, is said to remotely control Russia's nuclear arsenal. The Cheget, developed in the 1980s, allows president Vladimir Putin to give the order to launch a nuclear weapon by sending a permission code to the Strategic Missile Forces. It can also warn Putin and high-ranked officials of any early signs of a nuclear attack. The inside of the case was displayed...

You probably recall the nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal. Sergei and his daughter Yulia were found collapsed near a mall in Salisbury last March. British investigators eventually determined that a pair of Russian agents using the false names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov had traveled to Salisbury and spread a deadly nerve agent on Skripal’s door.Fortunately, both Sergei and his daughter survived but another woman wasn’t so lucky. Dawn Sturgess had been living with a man named Charlie Rowley. Rowley found what appeared to be a bottle of expensive perfume in the street and brought it home for...

RUSSIA has secretly installed nuclear missiles in Venezuela a US politician has sensationally claimed in a chilling echo of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Republican congressman Mario Diaz-Balart said he believes Vladimir Putin's hidden nukes are now a direct threat to the "national security" of the United States. He made his astonishing allegations hours after Venezuela was pushed to the brink of civil war when opposition leader Juan Guaido called for rival Nicolas Maduro to be ousted from office. Diaz-Balart told Fox News if Maduro stays in power it could be "an open door for the Russians and for the Chinese...

President Trump appears to take his orders from Russian President Vladimir Putin, rather than working on behalf of the American people, Rep. Karen Bass, D-Calif., claimed Thursday. "In the United States, it's kind of hard for us to imagine the situation that this president is in," she said on CNN's "New Day." "And all of that compromises our national security. But we do know over the last three years, we know who this president answers to. And it’s not the American people. It’s Putin."

Iran is stockpiling short-range ballistic missiles in Iraq that can reach Israel, according to a New York Times report that cited American intelligence and military officials. The hidden rockets are part of a larger effort by Iran to intimidate countries in the region and assert its power, the Times reported. Short-range missiles generally have a range of just over 600 miles, so one fired from just outside of Baghdad could reach Jerusalem. Iran’s effort to build up its arsenal comes as the United States has sent thousands of troops to the region with plans to send more. The arms in...

Iran has been taking advantage of recent political unrest in Iraq by secretly stockpiling short-range missiles inside the country, the New York Times reported Wednesday. The buildup is part of Iran's widening effort to assert dominance in the Middle East and could pose a threat to American troops as well as allies in the region such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, U.S. sources told the Times. Both Iraq and Iran have been gripped by deadly protests in recent months, with more than 1,000 people reported dead as a result of protests in Iran. But public unrest has not seemed to...

MT shares a wonderful clip of Hillary Clinton's debut appearance on the Howard Stern Show.

Two female ISIS supporters will be permitted to walk the streets of Germany after they’re returned from Syria by the Turkish government. Former Islamic State members Heida R. and Nasim A. are set to be deported by the Turkish government back to Germany, but neither woman is expected to be arrested upon their arrival despite having been involved with the murderous terror organization for years in Syria, German national newspaper Die Welt reports.Heida, who’s originally from Lower Saxony, traveled to Syria in 2014 with her ISIS fighter husband. She was first captured in northern Syria after her husband died during clashes. Somehow...

Last week the Egyptian court system denied justice to Egypt’s Coptic Orthodox Christian minority by again postponing judgment on two notorious cases that have been at court for years. The first concerns Soa‘d Thabet, a 70-year-old Coptic grandmother. On May 20, 2016, a mob of some 300 Muslim men descended on her home, stripped her completely naked, beat, spit on, and paraded her in the streets of al-Karm village (in Minya governorate) to jeers, whistles, and triumphant shouts of “Allahu Akbar.” Earlier that day she and her husband had gone to local police and complained that they were being harassed...

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on Wednesday that Turkey had dropped its block on a plan to bolster the defences of Baltic states and Poland against Russia. He told a news conference after an alliance summit outside London that NATO leaders did not discuss the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey views as a terrorist organisation. Ahead of the summit, Ankara had refused to back the NATO defence plan for the Baltics and Poland until it received more support for its battle with the YPG, including other alliance members recognising it as a terrorist group. In a final press conference...

Three years ago, Donald Trump began a rhetorical offensive targeting the governments of NATO nations that chronically failed to meet their allied defense financial commitments. With bombastic huff, Trump intimated that allies pay their share or America might walk. It's 2019. Few NATO members currently meet the 2% GDP defense commitment. However, several once-laggard NATO nations have increased military spending, and the alliance is stronger for it. The era of blithe freeloading has ended. Cheapskates like Germany pay a price in lost prestige. America not only hasn't walked; it is modernizing its forces. Earlier this year, President Trump began grousing...