Free Republic

Analysts following what appears to be a developing political crisis in Russia suspect the growing tensions engulfing the Kremlin may be a product of the workings of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, once a loyal ally to President Vladimir Putin. On February 27, a gunman murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow just feet away from the Kremlin. Russians and international media immediately suspected it was an inside job, especially when the Kremlin revealed the security cameras were not working due to maintenance. Eyebrows raised higher when the Kremlin arrested four Chechens for the murder. One man, Zaur Dadayev, confessed to...

MARIUPOL, Ukraine—As part of a joint Department of Defense-State Department effort to bolster Ukraine’s internal defense capabilities, the United States will be sending Army paratroopers to train Ukraine’s National Guard, a U.S. Army Europe spokesman confirmed to The Daily Signal Monday. U.S. Army Europe spokesman Donald Wrenn said paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is based in Vicenza, Italy, will train six Ukrainian National Guard companies on internal security and territorial defense beginning at the end April. “There will also be some training for headquarters personnel,” Wrenn said, “focusing on the continued professionalization of Ukrainian staff members.”...

Plunging oil prices have been an economic windfall for U.S. consumers, primarily through greater savings at the pump. In energy-reliant countries around the world like Angola, however, the effect has been far less beneficial. Social and economic turmoil in countries like Venezuela and Russia—largely because of the swoon in global oil prices—has drawn attention away from Angola, an OPEC member that is Africa's second-largest oil producer. The country churns out 1.75 million barrels of oil per day, according to the Energy Information Agency (EIA). The sub-Saharan country is hugely dependent on oil production to generate revenue for its economy, which...

Amman - His Majesty King Abdullah II, on Monday, received a delegation of US senators, led by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The meeting reviewed ways to strengthen Jordan-US relations in various fields, and the latest regional and international developments. His Majesty the King expressed his appreciation for the United States' efforts to support Jordan in dealing with various challenges facing the region, and the aid that the US provided to the Kingdom, which helps Jordan implement its comprehensive and development plans and programs. The meeting tackled the latest developments in the Middle East, particularly endeavors to combat the threat...

His Majesty King Abdullah II received on Sunday, the Speaker of the US House of Representatives, John Boehner, and his accompanying delegation to discuss Middle East issues. The meeting, which was attended by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al-Abdullah and His Royal Highness Prince Faisal Bin Al Hussein, dealt with Jordanian-US ties and ways to enhance these, especially in political and economic fields, in addition to regional and international developments, top of which are efforts to combat terrorism and extremist ideology and achieve peace in the region. The King said efforts should be ramped up to fend off the threat of...

As Secretary of State John Kerry and his P5+1 counterparts sought to finalize the political outlines of a comprehensive agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Sunday stood alongside the talks’ most vocal critic, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, and reiterated that Congress must approve any deal.

Administrators at a Catholic university in Florida agreed to help an honors student start a campus club that would send money and supplies to the ISIS terror army. Hidden camera footage released Monday morning shows officials and faculty at Barry University advising a senior – identified only as 'Laura' – about the best way to secure funding for a club she called 'Sympathetic Students in Support of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.' 'I want to start fundraising efforts on campus, and what I want to do is raise funds to send overseas,' she told Derek Bley, the school's...

Not even a lifeline could have helped her . . . There was a telling moment on today's Morning Joe when Joe Scarborough challenged April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks to cite some of President Obama's foreign-policy successes. Ryan was reduced to replying "that's kind of tough. Hmm, that's a tough one . . . I have to really ponder that." View the video here.

As reports continue to indicate a deal will be reached between the US and world powers on one side, and Iran on the other, regarding the Islamic regime's nuclear program, and just a day or so before the deadline set for a provisional deal passes on Tuesday, a senior Israeli security source appraised that Iran will get a free pass to go nuclear and keep spreading terrorism. Speaking to Walla! on Sunday, the source said, "even while according to the deal the dimensions of the nuclear project won't be disclosed, we appraise that under pressure America will approve the (UN)...

Media has reported that the Obama Administration has threatened to support a United Nations resolution calling on Israel to retreat to the pre-1967 armistice lines. Obama is lashing out at Israel – this time because the Israeli public re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu.

First, let me just say that I hope Jackson Diehl of the Washington Post is wrong and that President Obama has no intention of making a dramatic break with Israel in the coming months. But alas, the story he tells is very convincing. According to Diehl, the Obama administration is getting ready to back a U.N. Security Council resolution that would, in his words, “mandate the solution to the questions Israelis and Palestinians have been unable to agree upon for decades, such as the future status of Jerusalem.” Why does this matter? If Israel rejects peace terms imposed on it...

In full-page ad, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach warns of another Munich Agreement, calling one-year breakout time "catastrophic" • Ad says deal must not be signed before Iran's leader "personally and publicly repudiates all genocidal threats" against Israel. Popular New Jersey Orthodox Rabbi Shmuley Boteach took to The New York Times on Friday to criticize President Barack Obama's emerging nuclear deal with Iran, saying it could spell disaster for the Middle East region and the world. Boteach's World Values Network ran a full-page ad in the paper warning that the agreement -- which might be finalized by Tuesday -- could backfire like...

What’s that old adage? If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck. Let’s apply the duck test to the question of Barack Obama’s latent anti-Semitism rising to the surface and manifesting itself in outrageous anti-Israel policies. Obama used taxpayer money, his own political operatives and a nonprofit front group to interfere in the recent Israeli election, specifically with the intent of toppling Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister. It was an unprecedented move against an America ally, arguably an impeachable offense, a criminal misappropriation of government funds and, thankfully, a...

Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said the Obama administration’s obvious “animosity,” towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s is “reprehensible.” Defending Netanyahu’s heavily criticized comment that a two-state solution is not likely to happen soon Boehner said, “Well, he doesn’t have a partner. How do you have a two-state solution when you don’t have a partner in that solution, when you don’t have a partner for peace, when you’ve got a — when the other state is vowing to wipe you off the face of the earth?” Boehner added, “I think the animosity exhibited...

If there was any remaining doubt at all about who’s side Obama is on, this should eliminate it.  An Iranian journalist who previously managed Hassan Rouhani’s public relations defected to the West during the nuclear talks in Lausanne, Switzerland. Amir Hossein Motaghi: “The US negotiating team R mainly there to speak on Iran’s behalf" http://t.co/BkOlJvl8GI— Haya Eytan (@TeachESL) March 29, 2015 Amir Hossein Motaghi was an editor for the Iran Student Correspondents Association.  To remove any patina of a “free press” (if anyone may still believe Iran’s press is free) in Iran, Motaghi said, “There are a number of people attending on the...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remark about the dangers of a Palestinian state has sent advocates of Palestinian statehood into a rage so hysterical that you would think he had questioned somebody’s sacred religious beliefs. On second thought, maybe he did. The Palestinian statehood crowd has become so inflexible and doctrinaire, and so oblivious to the changing realities of the Middle East, that their political positions are starting to resemble a set-in-stone religious faith. Here’s what the prime minister said: “Anyone who is going to establish a Palestinian state, anyone who is going to evacuate territories today, is simply giving a...

Rabbi Shlomo Riskin, chief rabbi of Efrat, on Saturday night compared US President Barack Obama to Haman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Mordechai. Speaking at the Jerusalem Great Synagogue, the American-born Riskin said that he could not understand what was going through Obama’s mind. “The president of the United States is lashing out at Israel just like Haman lashed out at the Jews,” he said. “I’m not making a political statement,” he clarified, “I’m making a Jewish statement.” When a woman in the audience shouted out that he was being disrespectful to the US president, she was booed by...

AMMAN, JORDAN – House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and a delegation of senior lawmakers met with His Majesty King Abdullah II on Sunday during a visit to Jordan where talks focused on Iranian-backed violence in the region and the growing terrorist threat. King Abdullah hosted the delegation for a luncheon at Beit al-Urdun Palace. Lawmakers also met with U.S. Ambassador Alice Wells, Nasser Judeh, Jordan’s Foreign Minister, as well as senior embassy officials. Discussions focused on two major trends in the region: the violence caused by Iran’s allies and proxies, and the spreading of the terrorist threat. There was also...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a representative of a group of prominent Jewish leaders on Sunday that she wanted to put the relationship between the United States and Israel back on “constructive footing,” the representative said. Mrs. Clinton’s comments, made in a phone call to Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, contrasted in tone from recent remarks by members of the Obama administration, who have publicly criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel amid tensions over a nuclear deal with Iran and comments Mr. Netanyahu made in the...

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Western powers that any agreement with Tehran would be seen as a reward for the country’s alleged “aggression” in Yemen. “The agreement being formulated… sends a message that there is no price for aggression and, on the contrary, that Iran’s aggression is to be rewarded,” Netanyahu said, referring to Iranian support for Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen. “The moderate and responsible countries in the region, especially Israel and also many other countries, will be the first to be hurt by this agreement,” said the prime minister, who has waged a campaign against a...