Free Republic

The world's oldest known human tumor has been found in the rib bone of a Neanderthal who lived more than 120,000 years ago. The bone was evacuated from a site in Krapina, Croatia more than 100 years ago and has been found to have contracted the fibrous dysplasia tumor, a cancer which is common among modern-day humans. This discovery by David Frayer from the University of Kansas predates previous evidence of the tumor by more than 100,000 years. Before this discovery, the earliest bone tumor was seen in an Egyptian mummy around 2,000 years ago. David Frayer, professor of anthropology...

Ultimately, the Ustashe murdered more than 30,000 Jews, or 75 percent of the country’s [Croatia's] prewar Jewish community. Photo by: (Reuters) Just over a month from now, on July 1, a historic event will take place in the heart of Europe, when the EU welcomes Croatia as its 28th member state. The move will mark the culmination of a grueling decade long process, one in which the former Yugoslav republic had to implement widespread changes in a number of fields – ranging from intellectual property law to the free movement of capital – to bring itself in line with accepted...

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. …

The European Union is to ban olive oil jugs and dipping bowls from restaurant tables in a move described by one of Britain’s top cooks as authoritarian and damaging to artisan food makers. The small glass jugs filled with green- or gold-colored extra virgin olive oil are familiar and traditional for restaurant goers across Europe, but they will be banned from 1 January 2014 after a decision taken in an obscure Brussels committee earlier this week. From next year, olive oil “presented at a restaurant table” must be in prepackaged factory bottles with a tamper-proof dispensing nozzle and labeling in...

New evidence reveals the Obama administration’s version of the events that took place in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 was based on a tissue of lies. The Weekly Standard’s Steven Hayes has obtained a timeline and a series of emails revealing the self-serving efforts made by administration officials, who heavily edited CIA talking points about the attack that cost four Americans, including ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, their lives. Also revealed is who made the changes and why they made them. The revelations are part of a report published by the five Republican Committee chairmen that has been largely dismissed...

Amid growing calls from Tory MPs for David Cameron to respond to the Ukip threat by bringing forward legislation on an EU referendum, Farage warned that his party would not go away even if No 10 "starts singing the same song". William Hague, who famously suffered a major defeat in the 2001 election after tacking to the right, called for a cautious response to Ukip as he warned of the dangers of "quick fixes". Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, said many Ukip voters were "frustrated Conservatives". As the Tories work out their response to Ukip, which won nearly a quarter...

The U.S. government had the ability to “react and respond” to the Benghazi terrorist attack and could have had forces on the ground before the second wave of the assault began, a special operator with knowledge of the response told Fox News in an exclusive interview. Due to the explosive nature of his allegations, the special ops member asked to remain anonymous. “I know for a fact that C 110 the UComm CIF was doing a training exercise, not in the region of northern Africa, but in Europe. And they had the ability to react and respond,” he told Fox...

Serbia’s president apologized Thursday for the 1995 massacre of 8,000 Muslims in the Bosnian town of Srebrenica, but declined to characterize the killings as an act of genocide. “I kneel and ask for forgiveness,” President Tomislav Nikolić told Bosnian TV. “I apologize for the crimes committed by any person in the name of Serbia.” Nikolić came under fire last year short after he was elected by declaring, according to published reports, there was no “genocide” in Srebrenica. …

(AFP) Serbia's nationalist President Tomislav Nikolic on Thursday personally apologised for the first time for the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims, but stopped short of calling it genocide.

"...Outside my windows, the dark-browed Serbian peasants, the men in somber black, the women in their bright embroidered clothes, passed unhurriedly but more silently, more grimly than usual to the early Sunday market. I watched them thoughtfully as I began to pour my tea and turned the short-wave radio knob... ...I heard no sound but the jingling of milk carts in the streets and the shuffling of peasant feet. But it was coming, this raucously heralded doom. ...Bomb after bomb exploded all round us, some not more than twenty yards away. The effect was almost inconceivable. It wasn’t the noise...

Exclusive: Jack Cashill reviews skullduggery surrounding official's death 17 years ago Seventeen years ago yesterday, Hillary Clinton got her first practice in publicly blowing off the death of a government official she had dispatched on a dubious mission to a war-torn corner of the world. In the weeks and months that followed, Hillary honed her arts of deception, delay and double-dealing and tested the media’s tolerance for the same. What she and Bill had to conclude was that in a year in which a Democrat was running for re-election, a sycophantic media could be very tolerant indeed. Some background: On...

With help from the C.I.A., Arab governments and Turkey have sharply increased their military aid to Syria’s opposition fighters in recent months, expanding a secret airlift of arms and equipment for the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, according to air traffic data, interviews with officials in several countries and the accounts of rebel commanders. The airlift, which began on a small scale in early 2012 and continued intermittently through last fall, expanded into a steady and much heavier flow late last year, the data shows. It has grown to include more than 160 military cargo flights by Jordanian, Saudi and...

Controversy has erupted over next Tuesday's European Parliament resolution "on eliminating gender stereotypes in the EU", meant to mark international women's day, after libertarian Swedish MEPs from the Pirate Party spotted the call for a ban in the small print. While not legally binding, the vote could be the first step towards European legislation as the EU's assembly increasingly flexes its political muscle within Europe's institutions.

Saudi Arabia has financed a large purchase of infantry weapons from Croatia and quietly funneled them to antigovernment fighters in Syria in a drive to break the bloody stalemate that has allowed President Bashar al-Assad to cling to power, according to American and Western officials familiar with the purchases. The weapons began reaching rebels in December via shipments shuttled through Jordan, officials said, and have been a factor in the rebels’ small tactical gains this winter against the army and militias loyal to Mr. Assad. Washington’s role in the shipments, if any, is not clear. Officials in Europe and the...

Last month's Miss Universe pageant introduced the world to some truly stunning women, a prime example of which being Miss Croatia 2012 Elizabeta Burg: one of the youngest contestants at just 19, Elizabeta's what you might call a smart cookie, currently working on a veterinary degree while already fluent in English AND German in-addition to her native Serbo-Croatian... Elizabeta hails from the small Croatian town of Vrbanja, -near the Serbian and Bosnian borders- where her parents own the farm on which she learned the meaning of hard work, milking cows and cleaning stables as a young girl. Her personal ambition, discipline, and...

"IRAN SPY NETWORK 30,000 STRONG Pentagon report: Iranian intelligence linked to spying, terror attacks" SNIPPET: "Iran’s intelligence service includes 30,000 people who are engaged in covert and clandestine activities that range from spying to stealing technology to terrorist bombings and assassination, according to a Pentagon report." SNIPPET: "“MOIS provides financial, material, technological, or other support services to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), all designated terrorist organizations under U.S. Executive Order 13224,” the report said. The spy service operates in all areas where Iran has interests, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Central Asia, Africa, Austria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, France,...

Anton Geiser, a former Nazi concentration camp guard who fought deportation after settling in Pennsylvania, has died, his lawyer said. He was 88. Geiser, a retired mill worker with three American-born children, was an armed guard for the Nazis at the Buchenwald concentration camp, federal prosecutors said. Geiser, who was originally born in Croatia but settled in Sharon, Pa., after the war, said he was forced into service by the Nazis as a teenager and never participated in the systematic slaughter of Jews and other prisoners inside the camp. Federal prosecutors disagreed and were seeking his deportation to face a...

On November the 16th the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) outrageously reversed convictions, acquitted and ordered immediate release of the Croatian Colonel General Ante Gotovina, commander of a military offensive known as Operation Storm (Oluja in Serbian), and Colonel General Mladen Markac, Operation Commander of the Special Police in Croatia. Gotovina was on the run until 2005, when he was arrested in Spain and transferred to the ICTY. Needless to say the acquitted generals returned to Zagreb to a hero’s welcome with the 100,000 large crowd chanting “Victory, Victory.” In Belgrade there was a...

The appeals chamber at the Yugoslav war crimes tribunal in The Hague on Friday overturned guilty verdicts against Gotovina and fellow Croat general Mladen Markac in what is being called the most significant reversals in the court’s history. The two had been sentenced in 2011 to 24 and 18 years behind bars respectively for crimes against humanity and war crimes relating to a 1995 attack on Serbian civilians. The pair’s original conviction hinged on the tribunal’s acceptance of the existence of a plan led by the late Croatian President Franjo Tudjman to expel Serbs from Croatia. Three out of five...

The most striking proof that the Arab anti-Israel cause is a common meeting ground for both Nazis and Communists --and that the Arabs welcomed supporters of both ilks-- lies in the friendship of Carlos, the notorious master terrorist who served the PLO, with Fran*ois Genoud, an old Nazi, one of the leading Nazis in pre-War Switzerland, later a financier who provided funds for Habash's faction of the PLO. "Carlos" (his nom de guerre) was what is called a "red diaper baby." His fabulously rich father, a Venezuelan lawyer and owner of estates, gave "Carlos" the name Ilich, Lenin's patronymic, as...