Free Republic

The man responsible for the Europe-wide ban on traditional light bulbs can be revealed as a former Soviet Communist party member from Latvia. Andris Piebalgs, 51, the European Commissioner for Energy, leads the team which drafted the controversial regulations that will see all incandescent bulbs phased out by 2012. Far from being a faceless bureaucrat, Mr Piebalgs has waged a public war against opponents of the ban, mocking their stance and accusing them of being “resistant to change”. Five UK MEPs – including representatives of Sinn Fein, Plaid Cymru, Labour and the Liberal Democrats – endorsed the policy in a...

More Britons travel to Somalia for 'jihad': report (AFP) – 14 hours ago LONDON — Intelligence chiefs have warned British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government that Somalia is the next challenge in efforts to stem Islamic terrorism, a report said Sunday. The officials have warned that the number of young Britons travelling to Somalia to fight in the war-torn country or take part in "terror training camps" is rising, the Independent on Sunday said, citing unnamed sources. In particular, they are concerned about the number of people with no direct family connection to Somalia who are travelling there. The number...

Britain in moral crisis, warns Bishop of Rochester The Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali said that the rejection of Christian values is having a damaging effect on the country. Speaking at his farewell service, he expressed particular concern at the breakdown of the family and at growing calls for the legalisation of assisted suicide. Although he is stepping down as bishop, he vowed to continue to speak out on important issues and to fight for a return to Christian principles. "I believe that the Christian faith is necessary for the life of our country," he said.

The British tend to forget about the importance of Germany, our most significant European partner. There are, of course, memories of the world wars of the 20th Century. Relatively few British people speak German; we like to enjoy Mediterranean holidays, so we have come to know the French, Italians and Spanish. Yet Germany is a stable Northern democracy and a major trading partner. The sale of Opel and Vauxhall, which make up the the European branch of General Motors, this week demonstrated the significance of German bargaining power Historically, Britain and Germany have had a more significant relationship than many...

Documents published last week highlight the former prime minister's concern that the fall of the Berlin Wall could be a risk to Britain's national security. "We do not want a united Germany," Margaret Thatcher told President Gorbachev at a lunch meeting in the Kremlin in September 1989, two months before the fall of the Berlin Wall. "This would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the whole international situation and could endanger our security." Among the 1,000 transcripts of Politburo and other high-level papers smuggled out of Russia by...

An impression of how a controversial future giant aircraft carrier would look in its home base has been unveiled today by the Royal Navy.The computer-generated image has been created to give an impression of the scale of the next generation of warships which are due to enter service in 2015.It shows one of the carriers alongside at Portsmouth Naval Base, Hampshire, where it would take up three jetties.     Ministry of Defence computer generated image of how a controversial future giant aircraft carrier would look in its home base was unveiled today by the Royal Navy. It shows one...

LONDON — Britain's late queen Elizabeth the queen mother revealed in a letter published on Sunday how she and her husband king George VI came close to being killed during World War II in a German bombing raid. Written only hours after the incident, the letter tells how the royal couple leapt when they heard the "unmistakable whirr-whirr of a German plane" and then the "scream of a bomb" 69 years ago. The bomb exploded in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and three servants were injured in the attack, the queen wrote to her mother-in-law. "My darling Mama. I hardly...

The revelation that the men are being allowed to live in Britain without the prospect of being arrested or deported has prompted calls for an urgent change in the law. Among the 12 suspects named on the UN list are a number of men accused of raising funds for a violent jihadist group with alleged links to Osama bin Laden.

Three-quarters of teachers in Britain's schools believe they should warn pupils about the dangers of patriotism - which some regard as a form of 'brainwashing', researchers have found. A nationwide study found the majority of teachers felt they should not be promoting the subject at all in the classroom, with some preferring to instruct their pupils in the benefits of 'universal brotherhood'. And even those who felt positively about patriotism felt the need to qualify and tone down their support, stressing that they disliked 'jingoistic flag-waving'. The findings are a blow for the Government after Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke...

A foster child was sent to live with the family of the ringleader of the airlines bomb plot by the same council that was at the centre of the Baby P abuse case. Haringey Council placed the child with relatives of Abdulla Ahmed Ali who was found guilty of planning to kill thousands of innocent people by blowing up trans-Atlantic airliners in coordinated suicide attacks. The child was placed in a house in Walthamstow, East London, where Ali and his wife lived along with a number of her relatives. The couple later moved out to a council flat nearby, paid...

Poverty levels in parts of Britain mirror "the times of Dickens", leaving schools struggling to cope with increasing numbers of children lacking the most basic personal skills, according to a teachers’ leader. Some pupils from the poorest areas arrive at school unable to dress themselves or use a knife and fork, with some even unable to use a toilet properly, she said. Lesley Ward, president of the 160,000-strong Association of Teachers and Lecturers, warned that many children were also being relied upon to raise younger brothers and sisters and lacked stable father figures in the home. “Children who get themselves,...

"Exercise helps to protect against heart disease by controlling weight but also by improving the health of blood vessels, lowering heart rate and increasing levels of good cholesterol. But Britons are amongst the most sedentary in Europe with only a quarter of people achieving four or more days of moderate activity per week compared to more than two thirds in the Netherlands. Only Italy and Ireland are more sedentary nations, according to the report."

Back from summer recess, Congress faces continuing outrage over Scotland's release of Libyan terrorist Abdel Bassett al-Megrahi, convicted of destroying Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. How did this happen? How is it possible, at the supposed height of "Obamamania" worldwide, that Great Britain, our closest ally, would free a terrorist who killed 270 innocents, 189 of them Americans? What does this mean for our policy against terrorism? British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's own ministers now concede, despite earlier denials, that Megrahi's triumphal return to Tripoli was linked to British interest in greater trade and investment with Libya. In the...

"The liquid bomb plot 'terror banker' still walking free in London as Yard chief accuses U.S. of rushing investigation" By DAILY MAIL REPORTER Last updated at 2:26 PM on 08th September 2009 SNIPPET: "And it also emerged today that a suspected key figure in the plot is still at large in Britain despite being pinpointed as an Al Qaeda financier with links both to the airline plan and the 21/7 bombers." SNIPPET: "Intelligence sources in the UK have indicated it was surveillance of Mohammed Al Ghabra, 29, who first led them to the airline plotters. He is suspected of being...

An NHS whistleblower claims that he was subjected to a campaign of bullying and harassment after raising concerns about patient safety and care at a London hospital. Ramon Niekrash, a consultant urologist, says he repeatedly raised concerns about problems at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in South London which he said were caused by cost-cutting. These included a shortage of senior doctors, too many patients and the risk of hospital acquired infection, such as MRSA. But at one point a senior doctor at the hospital allegedly said that she wished that Australian-trained Ramon Niekrash, was “in chains on a plane in Heathrow...

If the wave of terror attacks against Britain can be linked to one man, then intelligence sources say that man is Abu Ubaida Al Masri. He was the 'Holy Warrior', the veteran Muhajideen fighter chosen by Al Qaeda to bring unprecedented death and destruction. With the end of the airline bomb trial, we can reveal his extraordinary role in orchestrating at least four separate plots uncovered against the UK.

... After 30 years of being South Yorkshire's undisputed King of the Veg , the pensioner, from Barnsley , was told he is no longer welcome at local shows. Now Mr Micklethwaite has vowed to take his fight to the courts after being blacklisted by the South Yorkshire District of the National Vegetable Society. ... 'But I know the reason it's because I'm too successful. I win too much so it's all sour grapes, they're just looking for a way to keep me out. 'They don't want me there because I might be a bit too good. 'If they had...

Reporting from Washington and London - Three young Britons were declared guilty Monday in a London court of planning to blow up transatlantic planes in a spectacularly scaled, Al Qaeda terrorist plot that could have killed thousands of people. A jury in Woolwich Crown Court convicted Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, Tanvir Hussain, 28, and Assad Sarwar, 29, of conspiring to murder by setting off liquid bombs smuggled aboard seven North America-bound airliners in sports-drink bottles. Police have said their plan was possibly days from fruition when the men were arrested in August 2006 amid the biggest counter-terrorism investigation in British...

Top 'terrorism suspect' freed: report LONDON (AFP) – The government has released a man it considers a top dangerous terrorist suspect from virtual house arrest, possibly to avoid disclosing secret evidence against him, a report said Monday. The unnamed man has been closely monitored and his movements severely restricted since 2006 because of his alleged links with Islamic terrorists, although he has never been charged, the Times said. His control order, which confines him to his home for 16 hours a day, was revoked last week and his electronic monitoring tag removed, despite government claims that he remains a threat,...

Ninety people have been arrested after fighting erupted at a right-wing protest in a busy shopping street. A planned demonstration in Birmingham against Islamic fundamentalism, by The English Defence League, resulted in angry clashes with anti-fascist campaigners. Gangs of men and youths hurled bottles at one another and pelted riot police with bricks as trouble erupted in the New Street area of the city, close to the main train station. The disorder, which involved around 250 people, spilled onto the adjoining Bennetts Hill - a street lined with a number of pubs popular with shoppers.

British officials claim Mr Obama and Mrs Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning Megrahi’s return. The officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over Megrahi’s release, not because they did not know it was about to happen. ‘The US was kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard to Britain’s discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi,’ said the Whitehall aide. ‘We would never do anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the US. It is disingenuous of them to act as though...

The allied commander wants greater effort, but the war looks ever more likely to poison Barack Obama’s presidency Entertaining a group of US historians at the White House this summer, President Barack Obama revealed that he was beginning to worry about Afghanistan and the prospect that his ambitious domestic agenda would come to be overshadowed by an unpopular and unwinnable war. It was an odd moment for Obama to be preoccupied by foreign policy – he was in the middle of a ferocious congressional battle over healthcare reforms – yet his concern turned out to be prescient. As he spends...

Clarice Feldman It seems that Obama is not going to get away with blaming the Brits for releasing the Lockerbie bomber. At least not if Downing Street can help it. The British say the White House and Secretary of State Clinton were fully informed of the decision and are deflecting blame onto the British now that the decision has proven to be unpopular. (Of course, given how the American press hides stories, like Van Jones that reflect badly on the President, unless Americans seek out alternate media or read the foreign press the White House deflection will probably work.)

Campaigners have called for an investigations into an NHS scheme which helps to end the lives of terminally patients after a group of leading doctors warned that some were dying prematurely. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph the medical experts warned that Britain was facing a “national crisis in care” because some patients were having fluids and drugs removed after being wrongly judged to be close to death. Many were also being sedated, making it more difficult for doctors to tell their true condition. The experts warned that the scheme was encouraging a "tick box" culture in which healthcare...

A mother who watched her premature baby die when doctors refused to help him has condemned medical guidelines which said he should not be saved. Sarah Capewell gave birth to a baby son when she was 21 weeks and 5 days into her pregnancy. Her pleas to doctors and midwives to admit the newborn to a special care baby unit were rejected. Staff at James Paget Hospital, in Gorleston, Norfolk, told her that if her son Jayden had been born two days later, at 22 weeks, they would have tried to help him. Instead, Miss Capewell, who had previously suffered...

I remember when the UK first announced that a handful of Sharia Courts had opened there. People across the Internet were saying that is was no big deal, that is was just like Beth Din, Jewish Courts. My argument was that Jews are not looking to impose religious laws on the UK and that Pandora's Box had been opened. That the sharia loving Muslims of the UK would keep on pushing until they get full Sharia Law implemented in these courts. The push just got stronger.

Today, Deputy Judge David Elvin QC, quashed Justice Secretary Jack Straw's decision to continue detaining the prisoner, known only as 'A', in a male prison. He was told that steps were already being put in place to transfer A to a female prison 'as soon as possible'. The move will pave the way for 'A' to have the operation to fully change from a woman to a man. He has to live openly as a woman for two years before having the procedure. A's health authority will have to foot the £8,000 bill for his sex change operation. --- Although...

N/A

Who needs scare-mongering tactics when debating socialized medicine? All you have to do is read the true stories: Socialized Medicine: Handing Out Premature Death Sentences 84rules September 3, 2009

Having just won a revolution, the Founders were faced with constituting a new nation. Under the constitutional plan devised by the Founders, they had to identify who were the members of the new nation. They called these members “citizens” of the United States. Thus, they created our first generation of United States “citizens.” These persons were either born abroad or in the British colonies before July 4, 1776 or abroad or in the new States thereafter, but in all cases inhabited one of the colonies or States and were loyal to the American revolution. The Founders under Article II grandfathered...

Gordon Brown is facing a Labour revolt over plans to cut the benefits of the poorest families by up to £15 a week, The Times can reveal. Proposals to be implemented next April, a month before a general election, could mean some people losing a fifth of their income. The move, which has provoked anger among Labour backbenchers, was compared last night with the fiasco over the abolition of the 10p rate of income tax. At the moment 300,000 people on low incomes are allowed to keep up to £780 a year of their housing allowance if they find accommodation...

Someone needs to remind Charles Schumer that the war of 1812 is over. The senior Senator for New York is ludicrously calling for sanctions against Great Britain over the role of the Labour government in the release of Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. The New York Daily News quotes Schumer as saying: “If it is proven that there was a quid pro quo, even though Britain is our friend, there ought to be some sanctions.” Schumer doesn’t outline exactly what those sanctions might be and his remarks were probably made without any thought or consideration, but his comments are deeply...

"Professor Lisa Jardine said that payments should be considered because a national shortage of donated eggs and sperm was driving infertile couples to seek treatment abroad, where large fees are permitted. British donors can receive only expenses, plus up to £250 for lost earnings. Any such move would have to comply with the 2004 EU Tissues and Cells Directive, which restricts the circumstances in which money can change hands for sperm and eggs. The directive requires that governments “shall endeavour to ensure voluntary and unpaid donations of tissues and cells” and states that compensation “is strictly limited to making good...

The London Times has a shocking article in which new details are discovered regarding the release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. The British government decided it was “in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom” to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal. Gordon Brown’s government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.

A transgender driver's return behind the wheel of a taxi has lasted just a month. Andre Edwards, 51, walked out of her job at Leyland-based Eco Cabs following a series of rows with her new bosses – and they don't want her back. The move comes less than a month after the Evening Post revealed how the company, based on Mellor Road, had given her a chance to work two months after she was sacked from Leyland Taxis

Jihadists struck London on July 7, 2005 and Glasgow on June 29, 2007, and many still operate in Britain -- but how bad is it now? To begin finding out, I spent the last week in London, visiting mosques and discussing the situation with locals. What I saw wasn’t shocking, but quite depressing. I went to London to work on a documentary on the Islamization of Europe with operatives from the Christian Action Network, which last year produced the shocking documentary Homegrown Jihad: The Terrorist Camps Around the U.S. For that film, CAN’s Jason Campbell visited many of the Jamaat...

I had blogged earlier this year about the horrors patients faced at Stafford and Cannock Chase Hospitals in Great Britain. This story from the Telegraph shows that the policies and attitudes of those who work the socialized medicine system are not restricted to just Mid-Staffordshire. ‘Cruel And Neglectful’ Care Of One Million NHS Patients Exposed 84rules August 27, 2009

One million NHS patients have been the victims of appalling care in hospitals across Britain, according to a major report released today. In the last six years, the Patients Association claims hundreds of thousands have suffered from poor standards of nursing, often with 'neglectful, demeaning, painful and sometimes downright cruel' treatment. The charity has disclosed a horrifying catalogue of elderly people left in pain, in soiled bed clothes, denied adequate food and drink, and suffering from repeatedly cancelled operations, missed diagnoses and dismissive staff. The Patients Association said the dossier proves that while the scale of the scandal at Mid-Staffordshire...

The number of jobless households has risen at its fastest rate since Labour came to power with almost five million people now living in homes where no one works. New figures reveal a massive 4.8million people of working age now live in a home where no one holds down a job. The data for April to June this year shows an increase of 500,000 on a year ago before the recession took a crippling grip on Britain. The percentage of households where no adults work is now 16.9 per cent, up 1.1 per cent on 2008, according to the data...

Can you imagine the lawsuit waiting if this had happened in the United States? Man Collapses With Ruptured Appendix ... Three Weeks After (British) NHS Doctors 'Took It Out' 84rules August 26, 2009

As Rush Limbaugh said on the air today, forget about death panels, Great Britain has birth panels. Here's the story from the Daily Mail: Bed shortage forces 4,000 mothers to give birth in lifts, offices and hospital toilets Thousands of women are having to give birth outside maternity wards because of a lack of midwives and hospital beds. The lives of mothers and babies are being put at risk as births in locations ranging from lifts to toilets - even a caravan - went up 15 per cent last year to almost 4,000. Health chiefs admit a lack of maternity...

After watching my son being born last December and reading about how hospitals in Great Britain are turning away women in labor, I thank God I live in the United States! More Reasons Why We Do Not Want Socialized Medicine 84rules August 26, 2009

Forty years after the death of the “last lion,” Great Britain is producing men of straw rather than of Churchillian iron. It was only six months ago that the British government humiliatingly and shamelessly bundled visiting Dutch politician Geert Wilders back on to a plane to his native Holland to appease Muslim public opinion. Wilders had been invited to show his documentary film, “Fitna,” at Britain’s House of Lords, but, in a gross outrage, was denied entry to the country. That watershed moment of capitulation, however, was surpassed last week when the Scottish government released Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Magrahi...

When Winston Churchill learned in the spring of 1945 that the Americans were going to halt their advance on Berlin from the west and leave Hitler's capital to the mercies of the Red Army of the Soviet Union, he was furious. The United States government had made an absolute commitment not to let post-war Europe separate out into distinct areas of political influence. But now this was precisely what was being allowed to happen. Russian behaviour was worsening by the day as Stalin's all-conquering men rolled up the countries in the east and made them satellites of Moscow, in defiance...

Great Britain has long been held as the shining example of what can be accomplished via gun control. Handgun ownership is all but unheard of and rifles and shotguns are tightly controlled and citizens require a "good reason" to be issued a permit to own one. Historically, self-defense has not been considered a good enough reason. Now, the Daily Mail reports that while law abiding citizens have been nearly universally disarmed, the criminals have not and flaunt their power. According to the Mail, "the level of violent crime in Britain has risen by 70 per cent. Gun crime is up...

Police are removing valuables from unlocked cars to shock motorists into being more careful. Officers in London are taking everything from handbags to satnavs, and leaving a note telling drivers their property is at a local police station.

The 270 victims who died in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 more than two decades ago included 189 Americans, among them dozens of college students and military personnel heading home for the holidays. Former Libyan intelligence agent Abdel Baset al-Megrahi was convicted of the terrorist act in 2001 and sentenced to 27 years in a Scottish prison. That's where this monster should have ended his days.

Now even The New York Times is admitting that Obamacare means rationing and also means a cutting back of Medicare proving that fears of America’s elderly are “not entirely irrational.” The Times is admitting that the original guarantee that Medicare is forever and that the government won’t interfere between patient and doctor is fading fast. Again, as we’ve said in the past, one of the chief ways we can judge if we should allow Obama and his Democrats succeed in forcing a government takeover of our healthcare is to look to see how government controlled healthcare works in other countries...

Family and friends of British soldier Lance Corporal James Fullarton grieve as his coffin passes through the streets of Wootton Bassett , in Wiltshire, in southern England, on Friday. The bodies of four British soldiers killed in Afghanistan were flown back to Britain Friday. Sergeant Simon Valentine, 29, was returned to RAF Lyneham beside Lance Corporal James Fullarton, Fusilier Simon Annis and Fusilier Louis Carter, all of 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.

All scare-mongering, those tales of how bad health care is in Britain and Canada, the New York Times' Paul Krugman declared the other day. Perhaps you read this; it ran in the Journal Sentinel, but it's worth reading again for its sheer audacity: "In Britain, the government itself runs the hospitals and employs the doctors. We've all heard scare stories about how that works in practice; these stories are false." You mean like this story, just to grab one from the headlines this week? "A young mother gave birth on a pavement outside a hospital after she was told to...