Free Republic

Greece aims to play the role of an economic force to strengthen ties between the European Union and Iran, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said Sunday after he arrived in Tehran for an official visit. "Greece will become an energy, economic and trade bridge between Iran and European Union," Tsipras said, according to a translation by the Mega television channel. He further called Iran "a key player for stability and peace in the Middle East, and a significant economic partner." Tsipras's comments come after Iran's nuclear deal with world powers came into force, allowing the United States and the European...

22 years ago I arrived in the US with nothing but dreams. Today, I'll be in a Super Bowl commercial. Thank you for everything, America! Thank YOU for being there with me. #SB50 #onlyinamerica On a more sad note, I reported on Twitter yesterday that former NASA astronaut Edgar Mitchell passed away. Thank you for coming forward. Thank you for speaking. Enjoy the next level. Enjoy your Super Bowl Sunday!

Iran wants to recover tens of billions of dollars it is owed by India and other buyers of its oil in euros and is billing new crude sales in euros, too, looking to reduce its dependence on the U.S. dollar following last month's sanctions relief. A source at state-owned National Iranian Oil Co (NIOC) told Reuters that Iran will charge in euros for its recently signed oil contracts with firms including French oil and gas major Total, Spanish refiner Cepsa and Litasco, the trading arm of Russia's Lukoil. "In our invoices we mention a clause that buyers of our oil...

The European Union on Saturday called on Israel to halt the demolition of illegal Palestinian buildings, some of which are EU-funded, and reiterated its opposition to building Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria. "In the past weeks there have been a number of developments in Area C of the West Bank, which risk undermining the viability of a future Palestinian state and driving the parties yet further apart," the EU diplomatic service said in a statement. It referred to Israel's decision on January 25 to declare 154 hectares (380 acres) of land near Jericho in Judea as state land, with...

Jerusalem is bracing for a series of Palestinian statehood initiatives in various international forums, including resolutions at the United Nations Security Council, Israel's ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said Thursday. "The Palestinians are increasing their involvement and activity in the international arena in a bid to internationalize the conflict," he told The Times of Israel. There are several initiatives calling for the creation of a Palestinian state circulating among UN diplomats, and while they recently received less exposure due to the world's focus on fighting the Islamic State terror group, these resolutions are anything but forgotten, he indicated. ...

The most trusted and powerful broadcasting organization in this world is the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). In the 1930s, it had a shameful history with Winston Churchill. Mr. Churchill was doing everything possible to warn and SAVE his country and the world from Adolf Hitler. Britain almost lost World War II. The world came dangerously close to being slaughtered and enslaved by Nazi Germany. A Churchill biographer, Henry Pelling, wrote that the BBC had kept him off the air on controversial questions in the 1930s. Those controversial questions included his strongest warnings about the dangers of Nazi Germany! The BBC...

According to the president of the Hellenic Confederation of Professionals, Craftsmen and Merchants (GSEVEE), some 6,000 Greek enterprises have emigrated to Bulgaria in the last couple of years alone. At the same time, the GSEVEE chief says, Greeks are behind about 60,000 new tax registrations and bank accounts in the neighboring country. Giorgos Kavathas on Tuesday cited the above figures from an ongoing survey by GSEVEE, adding that the interventions planned for the social security system can only be expected to lead to more Greek firms emigrating. The survey will be presented in the next few days, he noted. He...

Defense Minister Panos Kammenos on Tuesday heralded the creation of a central body to oversee and improve Greece’s response to the migration and refugee crisis and ensure the country safeguards its position in the Schengen passport-free area, noting that the new body will be led by a senior military official. Greece’s military is to have the oversight of the “Central Coordinating Body for the Management of Migration” until the Migration Ministry and the Hellenic Police gain the necessary know-how and experience to tackle the problem independently, Kammenos indicated at Tuesday’s press conference. The center, which is to be operational by...

Athens, January 21, 2016 Hierarchs of the Church of Greece have commented on the decision of local authorities to open a crematorium in the city of Patras, reports AgionOros. Bishop Chrysanthos stressed that "the war against the Church is now being waged openly. Cremation and other manifestations of the new morality (for example, "free cohabitation", civil partnerships and so on) have nothing to do with the Orthodox tradition of Greece". *** Metropolitan Justin of Kalamaria, commenting on the decision to open the crematorium, said: "Many claim that the Church should care for people's souls only and leave the body alone....

Belgium has called for vast refugee camps holding up to 300,000 refugees to be built in Greece in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of migrants from Syria and other nations outside Europe. At an emergency summit of European leaders yesterday, Belgian migration minister Theo Francken raised the spectre of setting up 'closed facilities' in Greece to be operated by the EU. He said that the Greeks 'now need to bear the consequences' of being too weak to guard their own borders and called for Athens to face an EU 'sanction mechanism' under which the rising number of refugees...

The academic boycott against Israel continues to broaden, with a new petition signed by 168 academics and researchers in Italy calling to suspend all agreements with Israeli universities as well as the Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology in Haifa. The petition comes three months after 343 British academics signed another petition calling for an academic boycott of Israeli universities on the grounds that they participate in violations of international law and support the occupation. [...] Among the boycott measures proposed by the petition are the cessation of all collaboration with the Technion and other Israeli universities, including academic and cultural...

Wow. Feminists are getting a good, hard shake and it looks like there's some brains still in there. I love how the interviewer keeps saying, "But it shouldn't *be* this way! Shouldn't we just not have rape?" The other lady totally gets it.

After the New Years migrant sex attacks, a leading German feminist has said the politically correct "bubble has burst" and Germans should speak out against Islamism. She claimed Cologne police have been covering up Muslim rape for 20 years, and said that sexual violence was now being used as a weapon of war in Germany. By in large, the feminist reaction to the migrant sex attacks has been to either play down the problem or deflect attention on to a non-existent "western rape culture". As Breitbart London reported shortly after the attacks, a local feminist group in Cologne held a...

Billionaire prophet of doom George Soros said the European Union is on the “verge of collapse” as it faces five or six crises at once. “The Greek crisis taught the European authorities the art of muddling through one crisis after another. This practice is popularly known as kicking the can down the road, although it would be more accurate to describe it as kicking a ball uphill so that it keeps rolling back down,” Soros said in an interview with The New York Review of Books.

American business magnate and investor George Soros no longer views Russia as an enemy of the EU and is now openly calling on Brussels to cooperate with Moscow, German newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten (DWN) wrote. According to him, the European Union may soon collapse due to the refugee crisis and the lack of leadership. In order to survive, European leaders need a "new Marshall Plan" in which Russia should play a key role, the investor stressed. Soros has always been a supporter of the idea of the EU's existence, but now he sees that the EU is "falling apart". In...

The Schengen system of free movement could be suspended for two years under emergency measures to be discussed by European ministers on Monday, as the French Prime Minister warned the crisis could bring down the entire European Union. Manuel Valls said that the “very idea of Europe” will be torn apart until the flows of migrants expected to surge in spring are turned away. On Monday, interior ministers from the EU will meet in Amsterdam to discuss emergency measures to allow states to reintroduce national border controls for two years. The powers are allowed under the Schengen rules, but would...

Video 2:41

Officials in Israel expressed outrage on Monday evening after the European Union (EU) passed a resolution stipulating that agreements with Israel will no longer apply to any areas over the 1949 Armistice borders. Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely responded to the decision and said, "The Europeans continue to act unilaterally with regards to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict". "This resolution achieves the opposite from what they sought to achieve. These types of declarations only push actual dialogue further away and give a boost to the Palestinians to continue their efforts to condemn Israel in the international arena and to continue the relentless...

Greece today (and Cyprus before it) offers a case study of how capital controls bifurcate a currency and distort business incentives... Once euro deposits are imprisoned within a national banking system, the currency essentially splits in two: Bank euros (BE) and paper, or free, euros (FE). Suddenly, an informal exchange rate between the two currencies emerges. Consider a Greek depositor keen to convert a large sum of BE into FE (say, to pay for medical expenses abroad, or to repay a company debt to a non-Greek entity). Assuming such depositors find FE holders willing to purchase their BE, a substantial...

Before I get into the substance of tonight's essay, I'd like to offer my deep gratitude to Nash Montana, who became a translation dynamo during the aftermath of events in Cologne and other cities. She translated three or four videos per day, and often an equal or greater number of articles. Thanks to her (and Vlad) the English-speaking world was able to get a well-rounded account of what was happening in Germany and Austria. Just over a week ago the culture-enrichers of Cologne went out for a wild night on the town. It was Silvester night, what we call New...