Free Republic

The White House is on the verge of introducing penalties against companies engaged in the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which will deliver Russian natural gas to the EU across the Baltic Sea. Apart from Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom, the project is being undertaken by German energy firms Wintershall and Uniper, French multinational Engie, British-Dutch oil and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell, and Austrian energy company OMV. Initially, Gazprom's European partners were planning to become stakeholders in the Nord Stream 2 AG, which is registered in Switzerland. However, the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, Poland’s...

The media and political elites who pose as defenders of the poor beleaguered Palestinians don't care about them at all.  They are merely pawns in an effort to rid the world of Jews, starting with the half of world Jewry living in the historic homeland of Jews, Israel.  This has been proven beyond a doubt by the reaction – really a lack of any reaction – to Syria's bombing of a large Palestinian settlement, in the course of that nation's civil war and ongoing ethnic cleansing of Sunni Muslims, who stand in the way of Iran's effort to establish a Shia...

Israel has claimed it hit nearly all Iranian infrastructure in Syria during airstrikes launched in response to a rocket attack on its troops in the occupied Golan Heights it blamed on Iran. The alleged Iranian barrage just after midnight, which Israel said failed to hit its targets, and extensive response appeared to be the most serious confrontation ever between two foes who have long warned of war. It would be the first time, if confirmed, that Iran has fired rockets directly at Israeli forces in a conflict that for years has been fought through proxies such as the Lebanese group...

Lebanon held on Sunday its first parliamentary elections in nine years, as citizens expressed cautious optimism that the country's rigid, oft-deadlocked sectarian political system could be swayed. Behind the scenes, however, one of the world's leading powers has quietly eyed the small state as a potential ground to project its power in the Middle East and into the Mediterranean. But it won't be easy. With Syrian rebels and jihadis at bay, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government set to further extend its comeback, Russia has pursued a cautious overture across the border into Lebanon—a $1 billion dollar arms deal, including...

Russian mercenaries...attacked an outpost manned by American commandos and U.S.-backed fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprising Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters...Today, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is the U.S. military's best ally in the fight against ISIS in Syria, helping to take back 90 percent of territory formerly held by ISIS. It consists of well over 50,000 Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighters.

Moscow [Russia], Apr. 15 (ANI): Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov claimed on Saturday that the toxin used to poison former double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, was BZ toxin, as confirmed by a Swiss laboratory. "Based on the results of the examination, traces of the toxic chemical BZ and its precursors, related to chemical weapons of the second category in accordance with the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, were found in the samples. BZ is a nerve agent temporarily disabling a person. The effect is achieved within 30-50 minutes and lasts up to four days," said...

SALISBURY, England (Reuters) - Yulia Skripal has left hospital more than five weeks after she and her father, a former Russian spy, were poisoned with a nerve agent in an attack that has sparked one of the biggest crises in the West’s relations with the Kremlin since the Cold War. -snip- The Skripals were in a critical condition for weeks and doctors at one point feared, even if they survived, they might have suffered brain damage. But the Skripals’ health since then has begun to improve rapidly. Yulia, 33, has been discharged from Salisbury District Hospital, Christine Blanshard, medical director...

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley slammed Russia over a deadly chemical attack on Syrian civilians, saying the country's hands are "covered in blood." "The Russian regime, whose hands are all covered in the blood of Syrian children, cannot be ashamed by pictures of its victims," Haley said during a U.N. Security Council meeting on Monday. "We must not overlook Russia and Iran's roles in enabling the Assad regime's murderous destruction," she continued.

The US threatened unilateral action against Iran after Russia vetoed a UN Security Council resolution on Tehran’s failure to stop its weapons from reaching Houthi rebels in Yemen. "If Russia is going to continue to cover for Iran then the US and our partners need to take action on our own,” said US ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Monday. “If we’re not going to get action on the council then we have to take our actions.” Ms Haley did not specify what kind of action could be taken. Russia on Monday vetoed the resolution that would have...

The Kremlin-backed head of Russia's Chechnya region, Ramzan Kadyrov, says he hopes President Vladimir Putin will remain in power for life. The remark, not unusual for a regional leader who has frequently praised the president and called himself Putin's "foot soldier," comes weeks ahead of a March 18 presidential election that seems certain to hand Putin a new six-year term. "I wish our president and supreme commander in chief a long life and hope that he will run our country for life," Kadyrov said in a post on Telegram on February 15.

Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin warned that if Senator Barack Obama were elected president, his “indecision” and “moral equivalence” may encourage Russia’s Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine. Palin said then: After the Russian Army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama’s reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence, the kind of response that would only encourage Russia’s Putin to invade Ukraine next. For those comments, she was mocked by the high-brow Foreign Policy magazine and its editor Blake Hounshell, who now is one of the editors of Politico magazine. Hounshell wrote then that Palin’s comments were “strange” and...

“We are sliding back,” the Ukrainian journalist turned parliamentarian Serhiy Leshchenko warned a year ago about the arc of political reform in his country. At the time, his assessment sounded alarmist, but it rings true today. Since the 2014 Euromaidan revolution, reformers in and out of Ukraine’s government have tried to remake a fiscally troubled and deeply corrupt country into a Western-oriented, rules-based one, but have only partially succeeded. Ukraine’s future as an independent and sovereign state will depend as much on winning its internal war on corruption and fixing its broken government as on keeping Russia contained in the...