Free Republic

Austrian railway company OeBB said on Thursday it had suspended all train traffic heading to Hungary due to "massive overburdening" after days during which thousands of migrants have transited the two countries on their way to Germany. "The OeBB must temporarily suspend trains heading to Hungary because of massive overburdening from trains arriving from Hungary,"

In Budapest, almost emptied of refugees the night before, the main railway station was again filling up with new arrivals, but trains to western Europe remained cancelled. So hundreds set off by foot, saying they would walk to the Austrian border, 110 miles away, like others had tried on Friday. After days of confrontation and chaos, Hungary’s government deployed more than 100 buses overnight to take thousands to the Austrian frontier. Austria said it had agreed with Germany to allow them access, waiving asylum rules that require them to register in the first EU state they reach. Hungary insisted the...

About 60 German universities in Germany are providing free university education to the growing population of refugees who are seeking asylum in the country, German newspaper Handelsblatt reports.Some universities are offering language tuition, have waived semester fees, provide free student passes for public transport, and give access to hardship and grant funds, according to survey done last month by the German Rectors’ Conference, a voluntary association of state universities.“Migration is a task for all of society, and universities must do their part,” University of Hildesheim president Wolfgang-Uwe Friedrich explained to Handelsblatt on why he set up the program. The Washington...

In pouring rain, they crossed the last few metres into Austria in the early hours of Saturday morning. The waiting Austrian police in their heavy waterproofs were taken aback by the refusal of the Hungarian bus drivers to take their passengers the last two kilometres over the border and on to the Nickelsdorf train station where they were expected, and where a Vienna-bound train was waiting.

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness's account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across. The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700 B.C. copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky. He referred to the...

National Archives and Records Administration - ARC 39081, LI 208-UN-173 - JAPANESE SURRENDER MORE TERRITORY [ETC.] - DVD Copied by Thomas Gideon. Series: Motion Picture Films from "United News" Newsreels, compiled 1942 - 1945. Part 1, Japanese surrender documents arrive at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Japanese surrender to the Chinese at Chingkiang. American prisoners of war leave Japanese prison camps. Shows the surrenders of Marcus Island aboard the destroyer and of the last Japanese holdings in the Philippines to Gen. Wainwright and Brit. Gen. Percival by Gen. Yamashita. Part 2, traitor Vidkun Quisling is sentenced at Oslo, Norway....

Image: via Food Court LunchAmong the chaos of the collapse of Hitler’s empire in April 1945 the biggest heist in history took place. Gold bars, jewels and stolen foreign currency with an estimated worth of $3.34 billion vanished from the Reichsbank vaults, in Germany.Reichsbank, Berlin 1933Image: German Federal Archive In the ensuing decades small quantities of this bounty have turned up in Portugal, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain and Sweden but the majority remains missing. Across the world search teams look for this missing treasure and the supreme prize of the legendary Amber Room, an acquisition from St. Petersburg during WWII,...

For a variety of reasons, there is a lot of enthusiasm and optimism surrounding the death of Palestinian Authority (''PA'') leader, Yasser Arafat, and how his demise might advance an expeditious resolution of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. To be sure, I would love to jump on this bandwagon, and offer another in a litany of cheery op-eds issued internationally since the passing of the former leader of the PLO. However, though I agree that Arafat has been a huge stumbling block to peace in this region that has now been removed, it is unquestionably much more than just him that has...

The Republican Party of the 1920's swept into power during a financial crisis. Errors in the Fed’s monetary policy in 1919 in kept rates too low to benefit the sale of Victory bonds. The Fed then tightened excessively due to inflation, creating a financial shock and depression from 1920 to 1921. At that time, the Republican Party viewed increasing tariffs as good policy. Thus, during the sixty seventh Congress, the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 was passed as a temporary measure until a more comprehensive measure could be drafted. Ultimately, Fordney-McCumber passed in 1922, imposing an ad valorem rate of...

Romanian national held after death toll in Austrian motorway tragedy is raised from initial estimate of about 50 victims Hungarian police have arrested the driver of a lorry found on an Austrian motorway with the decomposing bodies of 71 people, including a baby girl, inside. The man is a Romanian national, a police statement said on Friday. It came as the Austrian police confirmed three arrests in the case, following reports from the Krone newspaper that seven smugglers linked to the lorry had been held by authorities in Hungary. The death toll was raised on Friday from initial estimates of...

DOZENS OF PEOPLE were found dead in a truck on an Austrian motorway today. It is understood they suffocated to death. Police in Austria have said the deceased were migrants but it is not yet clear how long they had been in the lorry. According to local reports, between 20 and 50 bodies were discovered in the vehicle. It was found on a parking strip off the highway in Burgenland. It had been there since Wednesday and initial indications are that the driver fled. Channel 4 News International Editor Lindsey Hilsum is at the scene and has been tweeting about the...

Germany is again agitating for other European countries to take what they believe to be their ‘fair’ share of refugees coming to the continent with a stark warning that failing to do so could see the collapse of the EU.Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel made the remarks on Monday, reiterating the frequently made claim that some nations take a heavier than necessary burden, and others have an unarguable responsibility to get involved. Conveniently ignoring the fact that right-wing nation Hungary takes the highest number of migrants per capita in Europe, Gabriel said: “Germany, Sweden, and Austria take on most of the...

Sixth Salt Man Discovered in Chehr-Abad Mine 04 June 2007 Chehr Abad Saltman No. 2. LONDON, (CAIS) -- The sixth salt man was discovered in Chehr-Ābād Mine in Zanjan City. It is likely that a large number of salt men were buried in Chehr-Ābād Salt Mine, said Farhang Farokhi head of Zanjan Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization (ZCHTO). Five previous discovered salt men are being kept in Washhouse Museum , he added. Based on previous reports, Chehr-Ābād Mine had been used from the Achaemenid dynastic era (550-330 BCE) up to the early of the Sassanid dynasty (224-651 CE). The...

Oxford archaeologists want to join studies on Iran's salt men TEHRAN, Sept. 27 (Mehr News Agency) -- The director of an archaeological team working at the Chehrabad Salt Mine in the Hamzehlu region near Zanjan said that a group of Oxford University archaeologists is interested in participating in the study on the salt men found at the mine. "A group of Oxford University archaeologists has prepared a plan, asking to participate in the study, and the Center for Archaeological Research is investigating the plan," Abolfazl Aali told the Persian service of CHN on Wednesday "The archaeologists will be invited to...

New studies show Fourth Salt Man is 2000 years old TEHRAN, Dec. 23 (MNA) -- The most recent studies on the Fourth Salt Man indicate that the body is 2000 years old, the director of the Chehrabad Studies Center announced on Friday. Recent radiography and CAT scans of the body indicate that the Fourth Salt Man was 15 or 16 years old at the time of death, Abolfazl Ali added. Discovered in the Hamzehlu Salt Mine in early March 2005, the Fourth Salt Man is the most intact of the “salt men” discovered in the mine, which is located near...

Iran's foreign minister, Javad Zarif, has written an op-ed in the Financial Times which sets forward a distinct sequence for ostensibly resolving the daunting security challenges of the Middle East. First, the P5+1 - the group of powerful nations negotiating with Iran - should come to a deal over its nuclear program. As a result, he argues, Tehran will "open new horizons" and join "the international battle" against "the increasingly brutal extremism that is engulfing the Middle East." The idea that Iran is a partner in the fight against terrorism is not only disingenuous but also absurd. What Zarif is...

Sir Nicholas Winton - BBC Programme "That's Life" aired in 1988 (1:29 min) Sir Nicholas George Winton, MBE, who just died last week at the age of 106, was a British humanitarian who organized the rescue of 669 mostly Jewish Czechoslovakian children on the eve of the Second World War in an operation later known as the "Czech Kindertransport."  An article in Time paying tribute to Winton, a Jew by descent who had been raised as a Christian, was traveling in German-occupied Czechoslovakia and recognize that many children would die. He found homes for the children and arranged for trains to carry them from Nazi-occupied Prague to...

Nicholas Winton, a Briton who said nothing for a half-century about his role in organizing the escape of 669 mostly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia on the eve of World War II, a righteous deed like those of Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenberg, died on Wednesday in Maidenhead, England. He was 106. The Rotary Club of Maidenhead, of which Mr. Winton was a former president, announced his death on its website. He lived in Maidenhead, west of London. It was only after Mr. Winton’s wife found a scrapbook in the attic of their home in 1988 — a dusty record of...

More than 260,000 people in Austria have signed a petition urging the Austrian government to leave the European Union (EU). According to reports on Thursday, as many as 261,159 Austrians signed the petition. The number in total represents 4.12 percent of the country's electorate. Since under the country's regulations the threshold for calling a debate on a potential referendum is 100,000 people, the Austrian parliament must discuss a referendum on leaving the EU. The call for leaving the EU was most popular in the regions of Lower Austria and in Carinthia where 5.18 percent and 4.85 percent of potential voters,...