Free Republic

Washington (CNN)A trade decision by the Trump administration has inadvertently protected a price advantage enjoyed by Russian-caught fish sold in the US, much of which ends up in fish sticks served to American school children. For years, Alaskan fishermen have been frustrated by foreign competition from Russia, particularly in the lucrative pollock market. Caught in Russian waters, this cold-water cousin of the cod is processed in China before being sold in the US for use in frozen and breaded fish products, as well as imitation crab meat. Russian pollock costs less than its US-caught equivalent. That's helped it gain share...

blew up bridges on the Euphrates river held by Iranian militias several days ago, according to a report. This is the first time the Russians attacked Iranian targets in Syria. The information came from a senior Syrian official who refused to be identified, and was reported in Bas News, a Kurdish news website.

Google has started to remove certain entries from its search results in Russia in compliance with long-standing demands from the authorities, the Vedomosti business daily reported Wednesday. New regulations that went into effect in November 2017 require search engines to delete results to websites blacklisted by Russia’s communications regulator Roskomnadzor. Roskomnadzor, which bans websites containing prohibited information on topics such as child pornography, drugs and suicide, has also been accused of being a tool of state censorship. The regulator has blocked access to corruption investigations by opposition activist Alexei Navalny, the LinkedIn social network and the Telegram messaging app, and...

A Russian court on Wednesday sentenced a Danish man to six years behind bars for practicing as a Jehovah’s Witness — a first-of-its-kind case since the Motherland outlawed the religious organization. Dennis Christensen, a 46-year-old Danish citizen living in Russia, was detained at a prayer meeting in the southern Russian city of Oryol in May 2017 not long after Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses, an upstate New York-headquartered Christian denomination, an “extremist” group. Christensen was Russia’s first extremism-related arrest of a Jehovah’s Witness. Now, nearly 100 members of the group face charges in Russia and more than 20...

While driving at night through Counselor, on U.S. 550, the horizon takes on a dusky illumination, almost like daylight, said Samuel Sage, a member of the Navajo Nation’s Counselor Chapter House, at a news conference. Bright light flares from natural gas being burned off as part of oil and gas production have become increasingly common in northwestern New Mexico, particularly since 2013 said Sage. Sage was among several environmental advocates who gathered at the state Capitol in support of a bill that, if passed, would create a four-year moratorium on any new state permits for hydraulic fracturing — a type...

In what one analyst sees as a demonstration of commitment to the United States and NATO, as well as a warning to Russia, France publicly announced Tuesday that its military had recently conducted a nuclear strike exercise. During an 11-hour sortie involving a Rafale fighter, the French air force test-launched an ASMP or ASMP-A medium-range cruise missile, which can be armed with a nuclear warhead in the range of 100 kilotons. Tom Rogan, a national security expert writing at the Washington Examiner, noted that the timing of the test is as important — or more so — than the actual...

The French Air Force announced on Tuesday that it had conducted the test launch of a nuclear-capable missile from a Rafale fighter. An ASMPA cruise missile, which is the French military's main nuclear strike weapon for aircraft, was reportedly used by the Rafale. According to the French Air Force, the nuclear strike mission lasted 11 hours and included aerial refuelling of the Rafale. "These real strikes are scheduled in the life of the weapon's system," French Air Force spokesman Colonel Cyrille Duvivier said. "They are carried out at fairly regular intervals, but remain rare because the real missile, without its...

Macedonian Prime Minister Zoran Zaev says the entire Balkans will have prosperity and lasting peace when Macedonia joins NATO. Zaev spoke in Sofia, Bulgaria Monday — two days before Macedonia signs the accession protocol at NATO headquarters in Brussels. "Macedonia has been waiting for 27 years to become a member of NATO. Zaev said. "Today, Macedonia has the hope of having open doors." Greece had blocked Macedonia's efforts to join NATO and the EU because of a long-running dispute over the use of the name 'Macedonia' — shared both by a historic region of northern Greece and the former Yugoslav...

Senior security official in Tehran says ‘calculated measures’ will by used as a deterrent to prevent further attacks on ally A senior Iranian defense official warned on Tuesday that his country will hit back at Israel if it continues to carry out airstrikes in Syria. Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran’s National Security Council, made the threat as he held talks with visiting Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in Tehran. “If these actions continue, we will activate some calculated measures as a deterrent and as a firm and appropriate response to teach a lesson to the criminal and lying rulers...

Russia is now "so deeply invested in the Maduro regime that the only realistic option is to double down." Financial Times' Alexander Gabuev says that Rosneft owns two offshore gas fields in Venezuela and holds stakes in assets boasting more than 20 million tonnes of crude. Caracas owes Rosneft USD 3 billion. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last month declared himself interim president, winning the backing of the United States. Russia, meanwhile, supported Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro, who has led the oil-rich nation since 2013. The Kremlin is extending help to Maduro while the United States is imposing sanctions...

The head of Russia’s armed forces said Tuesday that it was imperative the country’s military develop ground-based cruise and hypersonic missiles by 2020 to counter rising threats from the U.S. and the West. In particular, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said during a conference call, the military will be looking at developing a ground-based version of the sea-launched Kalibr missile within the next two years, a requirement ahead of creating a longer-range hypersonic missile system. “The General Staff has submitted to the supreme commander-in-chief a list of measures, which he has approved. In 2019-2020, we need to develop the ground-based version...

Hal Freeman is an American who relocated to Russia with his Russian-born wife, and their children — this, in part to take a Benedict Option of their own. He writes a blog about his experiences there. Recently, he wrote about a post I’d made here, about people who have decided to leave America to live abroad. In his response, Freeman talked about his experience, and about a new book by University of Chicago political theorist John Mearsheimer. Excerpts: Others, not writing from a Christian perspective, have also noted major changes in American culture and the inability of much of “the...

The last contact Grigoriy Gancherov and his wife had with their son, a Russian private military contractor fighting in Syria, was on Feb. 4 last year. The father subsequently learned from a friend and fellow fighter of Sergei's that the 25-year-old had died several days later in a major battle against U.S.-led forces in the Deir al-Zor region. It was not until mid-April that he received formal notification of his son's death and the body was returned, accompanied by a death certificate stating he died on March 7 on the other side of Syria. Gancherov's account is one of half...

China on Saturday said it opposes the US decision to withdraw from a landmark Cold War nuclear missile treaty and urged Washington and Russia to hold "constructive" discussions. Moscow and Washington have long accused the other of violating the key Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces agreement, which was signed in 1987 and resolved a crisis over Soviet missiles. The US has said a new Russian medium-range missile system breaches the INF Treaty and on Saturday President Donald Trump said the country was suspending its obligations under the treaty -- a move mirrored shortly after by Moscow. "China is opposed to the US...

China unveiled a set of photos of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy’s Su-30MKK fighter jets' first training in the new year on January 6, 2019. These photos "inadvertently" revealed a detail: a Su-30 MK2 fighter preparing to take off was mounted with a Chinese PL-12 air-to-air missile. This does not seem to be anything special, but it indicates that China has already been able to modify the Su-30MKK's fire control system to give it the capability to use China’s homegrown weapons. The last thing that aircraft carriers want to see is the Su-30 MK2 fighter jet carrying YJ-12...

Cash-strapped Cuba plans fresh austerity measures and will pressure the sluggish bureaucracy to tighten its belt and cut red tape to address weak growth, falling export earnings and rising debt. The economy has averaged 1 percent annual growth over the last three years, compared with a 5 percent to 7 percent rate economists say is needed to recover fully from a 1990s depression caused by the fall of its former benefactor, the Soviet Union.

Last week the Vatican’s official website marked the 60th anniversary of the atheist, mass-murdering, terror-sponsoring Castro family’s and Che Guevara’s ascension to absolute power thusly:“Cuba Celebrates 60 Years of the Revolution ….The Cuban Revolution celebrated its 60th anniversary this January 1, 2019. On the island, the historic anniversary was celebrated with a ceremony in Santiago de Cuba, in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia, where Fidel Castro is buried, who died on November 25, 2016. To the main national forces on January 10, 1959, the dictator Fulgencio Batista fled 26 months of guerrilla war led by brothers Fidel and Raul Castro....

Is the Vatican under Pope Francis now so enamored of socialism that it's tweeting celebratory praise for the Castroites and the hellhole they made of Cuba? Well, it's apparently trying.  Get a load of this: The Vatican News website recently paid tribute to Cuba on the 60th anniversary of the Communist revolution in a post that was quickly deleted, according to reports. The Communist island nation marked the occasion with celebrations on News [sic] Year's Day, while several leftist Latin American leaders tweeted their best wishes. Here is the supposedly deleted tweet: La página DEL VATICANO publicó un homenaje a los 60 años de...

Russian Lobbyist Linked to Hillary Clinton at Infamous Trump Tower Meeting — Received Half-a-Million Dollars in Suspicious Payments Before and After Meeting Jim Hoft by Jim Hoft February 4, 2019 81 Comments California US Representative Devin Nunes shared on FOX News that Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, working with Glenn Simpson and Fusion GPS, likely set up the entire Trump Tower meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner as a way of entrapping the Trump campaign. The whole thing was a setup! On FOX News, Nunes, who sat through hours of testimonies related to the Trump – Russia farce, said...

The rush to condemn the Covington high school boys over an imagined slight against a native American and the clamor to ditch Virginia Governor Ralph Northam over a yearbook photograph depicting two figures, one in blackface and the other in KKK costume -- when they would not criticize him for his views on infanticide -- underscore the excruciating sensitivity of American politics to race, gender, and victimhood. The latest example is an op-ed in the Daily Beast alleging that "Tom Brady’s New England Patriots Are Team MAGA, Whether They Like It or Not." Their star quarterback, coach, and owner all supported...