Free Republic

Greece is drawing up drastic plans to nationalise the country's banking system and introduce a parallel currency to pay bills unless the eurozone takes steps to defuse the simmering crisis and soften its demands. Sources close to the ruling Syriza party said the government is determined to keep public services running and pay pensions as funds run critically low. It may be forced to take the unprecedented step of missing a payment to the International Monetary Fund next week.

The gilded lifestyle of MEPs has been compared to the uncontrolled excesses of ancient Rome after research showed their perks have not been dented despite biting austerity measures. From Italian MEPs who enjoy free haircuts to Maltese ones who get 52 free gallons of petrol a month, the perks—and expenses—continue unabated for the representatives of European Union nations. MEPs from the 27 EU nations are paid salaries of £137 million ($207 million) a year, according to research by German pricing watchdog Preisvergleich.de, and some earn 740 percent more than the average citizen. …

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe says South Africa, Nigeria and Gabon were “naive” to vote for a United Nations Security Council resolution which has been used by Western countries to carry out a sustained bombardment of Libya. “Our African countries were naïve, absolutely naïve, to vote with the West when the West had its interests, you know, its own motives ... ulterior motives,” Mugabe said in an interview published on Friday. “These motives include wanting to re-occupy our countries. They are in search of our resources, in search of political control. It's now the reversal of the freedoms that we attained through...

Did you know that the EU has ensured that there has been no war between its members for last 60 years?

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR ON April 17, 1975, I was a young man working for CARE in Phnom Penh. As I drove to my office on the Avenue de France at 7 a.m., I saw a group of heavily armed black-clad zombies walking toward the city center and me. I reversed quickly and went to the Hotel Le Royal, which had been turned into a Red Cross neutral zone. A doctor friend signaled for me to go to the side entrance opposite the National Library. He waited inside while I climbed over the locked gate. He and his colleagues had set up...