Free Republic

Gol-e-Zard Cave lies in the shadow of Mount Damavand, which at more than 5,000 metres dominates the landscape of northern Iran. In this cave, stalagmites and stalactites are growing slowly over millennia and preserve in them clues about past climate events. Changes in stalagmite chemistry from this cave have now linked the collapse of the Akkadian Empire to climate changes more than 4,000 years ago... It appears that the empire became increasingly dependent on the productivity of the northern lands and used the grains sourced from this region to feed the army and redistribute the food supplies to key supporters....

Good morning. The latest from President Trump on the border wall funding talks is that there was a "productive meeting" between his representatives led by Vice-President Mike Pence and the representatives of the Congressional Democrats...... An 18-year old Saudi Arabian woman is holed up in a hotel room at the airport in Bangkok, Thailand resisting efforts to force her back to Kuwait where she says she will be forced back to Saudi Arabia..... The Google translation reads: "Macron you're screwed, chicks are in the street" That was part of the banner held by hundreds of women yellow vests protesters on...

The substantial request for military support included air raids, logistics and transportation so Turkish forces could finish off the remaining fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, senior US officials were quoted as saying by the WSJ on Friday. "The Turkish requests are so extensive that, if fully met, the American military might be deepening its involvement in Syria instead of reducing it," the newspaper reported. The unidentified American officials told the Journal there was little chance Washington would agree to Ankara's requests in full. US President Donald Trump announced...

The president's shift in policy has been portrayed as a surprise—but America's foreign-policy machinery was quietly tasked with preparing for it months ago. ... “From 2011 and for the seven years that followed, the experts have been telling us that Assad’s days were numbered, that he was finished, even when it became obvious that wasn’t going to happen; it was a fairytale,” Middle East analyst Geoffrey Aronson said. “The result is that we were reduced to playing the role of spoiler. Listen, there are lots of reasons to not like Trump, but this was the right policy move to make....

U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton has warned the Syrian government it should not see the impending U.S. military withdrawal from the country as an invitation to use chemical weapons. U.S. President Donald Trump said in December that U.S. troops had succeeded in their mission to defeat Islamic State militants and were no longer needed in the country. The announcement, which took officials in Washington and allies abroad by surprise, contributed to Jim Mattis’ decision to resign as U.S. defense secretary and prompted concern that Islamic State could stage a comeback.

President Donald Trump will not withdraw American troops from northern Syria until the Turkish government guarantees it won’t then attack Syrian Kurdish forces that have been critical allies in the fight against ISIS, national security adviser John Bolton said Sunday. Bolton said a commitment from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that protects the Kurds after American forces exit is something Trump is demanding, and that it’s just one of several conditions that have to be met before U.S. troops leave. “There are objectives that we want to accomplish that condition the withdrawal,” Bolton said. He spoke to reporters traveling with...

New York Knicks center Enes Kanter announced Friday that he will not be traveling to London for the NBA team’s upcoming game out of fear of a possible assassination attempt due to his opposition to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Kanter, a Turkish native, told reporters he can’t travel anywhere except the U.S. and Canada because “there’s a chance I could get killed out there.” “Sadly, I’m not going because of that freaking lunatic, the Turkish president,” Kanter said. “It’s pretty sad that all the stuff affects my career and basketball, because I want to be out there and help...

The gruesome murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi shredded the idea that Saudi Arabian royalty should be praised for reforming itself. Princes who chop political opponents into little pieces are not nice people. That said, puh-leeze stop it with the adoration of a man who deserves none of it. Politico ran a gushing headline that read, "Jamal Khashoggi: The Free Thinker Whose Murder Shook the World." Time magazine named him one of "the Guardians," the journalistic muckrakers who became its 2018 Person of the Year. Time's Karl Vick laid on the praise, and thick, writing: "Khashoggi put his faith...

About the only people having a Happy New Year in the Muslim world aren't the Christians who are huddling and waiting out the storm, but the Islamists who use a different calendar but are having the best time of their lives since the last Caliphate. The news that the Obama Administration has brought in genocidal Muslim Brotherhood honcho Yusuf Al-Qaradawi to discuss terms of surrender for the transfer of Afghanistan to the Taliban caps a year in which the Brotherhood and the Salafists are looking up carve up Egypt, the Islamists won Tunisia's elections, Turkey's Islamist AKP Party purged the...

Singer Selena Gomez learned firsthand about some of the horrifying atrocities of sexual trafficking during her A21 internship, Christian author Ann Voskamp revealed. Gomez, who opened up about her volunteer work with the global anti–human trafficking nonprofit in an interview with Elle back in September, was taking notes when abolitionist Christine Caine shared of a grizzly discovery in Istanbul, Turkey. Caine, who leads A21, explained how 30 bloated bodies of young girls were discovered in a shipping container in Istanbul, with another 28 “gasping for one breath of air that isn’t thick with the stench of rotting evil.” She pointed...

Yellow Vests protester Eric Drouet says he attempted to stage a protest in Paris Wednesday night to: "show the French that we are not free"..... In Washington the political change with a new session of Congress Thursday...... Seven are dead and eight injured, some critically, after a fiery accident on I-75 near Gainesville, Florida Thursday..... A legendary Chicago machine politician is under federal indictment for attempted extortion...... A group of 11 men are being tried in Saudi Arabia for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi..... Israel's Attorney General Avechai Mandelblit says: "I an working with the Chief Prosecutor and spend...

The Syrian regime said Wednesday hundreds of Kurdish fighters had withdrawn from Manbij near the border with Turkey... "The information (we have) indicates that nearly 400 Kurdish fighters have left Manbij so far." The People's Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, last week invited regime forces to deploy to the key city following a shock announcement that American troops would leave the country.

In his second year in office, the list of extraordinary things President Trump has done, for good and ill, continued to grow. Today, I offer my annual list of the 10 best things Trump has done in office. (In my next column, I will give you my list of the 10 worst.) 10. He has secured the release of 19 people, including 16 Americans, from foreign captivity. When Pastor Andrew Brunson was freed by Turkey, he became the 19th captive released thanks to Trump. Others include: four held by North Korea; an aid worker and her husband held by Egypt;...

During a tirade against outlawed Kurdish militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu has referred to two of the bloodiest massacres in Turkish Republican history as “theatre” invented to “incite unrest.”“Those old enough will remember the events in Çorum and Maraş. Dozens of our citizens were killed. It was complete theatre, designed to incite unrest,” Soylu said.“We are living through 40 years of PKK incitement,” the interior minister added. It is unclear what link the minister was attempting to make between the massacres and the Kurdish militant group, which did not become launch its insurgency...

The disappearance and possible defection of former Iranian deputy defense minister Ali Reza Asgari has the Iranian government deeply worried — and for good reason. Meir Javedanfar, an expert on Iran and co-author of an upcoming book on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, reports. UPDATE: A senior U.S. official (has confirmed) that Asgari left his country voluntarily and is cooperating with Western intelligence agencies, providing information on Hezbollah and Iran’s ties to the organization. (Washington Post) The recent disappearance of Ali Reza Asgari, Iran’s former deputy defense minister who was on a visit to Istanbul has been a mystery for the...

Turkey and Russia have reached agreement on the next steps, military, humanitarian and otherwise in Syria. But the Turkish government is frustrated with the pace of the US military withdrawal from Syria..... Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a major supporter of jihadist groups opposing the Syrian government......says he's reassured after speaking with President Trump about the withdrawal of US forces from Syria... Russia's FSB security agency says an American citizen has been detained while on a spy mission..... A South Korea newspaper reports a conciliatory message from North Korea's ruler to President Trump.....

(arabic - use google translate) "A security source in Arbil, Kurdistan, the establishment of US forces a new base, is the fifth of its kind in the region........" "In the Shaklawa district northeast of Arbil, within the plan to increase the number of US troops stationed in the northern regions of the country." Local officials in Anbar province, west of Iraq, revealed in previous statements to Al-Maaloumah that American forces had established two new bases in Qaim district adjacent to the Iraqi-Syrian border.

Graham said Trump told him "some things I didn't know that make me feel a lot better about where we're headed in Syria." Sen. Lindsey Graham told reporters Sunday after a lunch with President Trump that plans to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria are "slowing down in a smart way." Graham, a South Carolina Republican, said outside the White House that talks about removing military personnel from the country are in a "pause situation." The senator said Trump told him "some things I didn't know" about his plans in Syria "that make me feel a lot better about where...

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said on Sunday that withdrawing US troops from Syria could directly result in the deaths of Kurdish people there and that he plans to make a case to President Donald Trump today to reconsider his plans. "There are three things important for this country. Number one, make sure that ISIS never comes back in Syria," Graham said to CNN's Dana Bash on "State of the Union." "We need to keep our troops there. They're inside the ten-yard line in defeating ISIS, but we're not there yet. If we leave now, the Kurds are going to get...

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) - Syrian President Bashar Assad authorized Iraqi forces on Sunday to attack the Islamic State group inside Syria without waiting for permission from authorities in Damascus, the state news agency SANA said, as the two allies coordinate their fight against extremists ahead of a planned U.S. withdrawal from Syria. ... On Saturday Assad received a letter from Iraq’s Prime Minister Abdul-Mahdi calling for both countries’ coordination in “fighting terrorism.” ... In Tehran, Iran and Syria signed Sunday a long-term strategic and economic agreement as the war winds down in Syria where Iran and Russia were the main...