Free Republic

The first group of migrants has reached Croatia-a new route to northern European Union countries, a day after Hungary sealed its border with Serbia. The migrants had travelled by bus from southern Serbia. Hundreds spent the night in the open. Many of them are hoping to reach Germany. Croatia has said it will not 'just allow people to move through".......... On Tuesday, Hungary declared a state of emergency in the area, with hundreds of army and police deployed to enforce new laws making it an offence to breach a razor-wire border fence. Police sealed a railway crossing point near Roszke...

Explanation: Have you watched the Perseid meteor shower? Though the annual shower's predicted peak was last night, meteor activity should continue tonight (August 13/14), best enjoyed by just looking up in clear, dark skies after midnight. Of course, this year's Perseid shower has the advantage of being active near the August 14 New Moon. Since the nearly New Moon doesn't rise before the morning twilight many fainter meteors are easier to spot until then, with no interference from bright moonlight. The Perseid meteor shower last occurred near a New Moon in 2013. That's when the exposures used to construct this...

Serbia is this Wednesday marking a day of remembrance for the Serbs who were killed or exiled in the wars during the 1990s.A convoy of ethnic Serb refugees expelled from Croatia 20 yearsa ago (Tanjug, file) The government also declared today a day of mourning for the victims of Croatia's Operation Storm that took place 20 years ago and resulted in the expulsion of over 200,000 Serbs, while more than 2,000 were listed as killed or missing. A memorial service for the victims in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina will be held in St. Marko's Church in Belgrade. At noon, bells will...

Croatia's Operation Storm was a joint criminal enterprise whose goal was to expel the Serb people in Croatia from the areas they lived in for centuries.This has been stated by the head of the Coalition of Refugee Associations Miodrag Linta. He spoke for Serbia's state broadcaster RTS on the occasion of the upcoming 20th anniversary of Croatia's military and police campaign. Linta said that over 220,000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia during Operation Storm, while around 2,000 were killed - 1,200 of them civilians. At the same time more than 40,000 residential and business premises owned by Serbs were set...

Back in the 1990s something happened in central Bosnia-Herzegovina that inspired people to this day and helps explain why that country now has more men fighting in Syria and Iraq (over 300), as a proportion of its population, than most in Europe. The formation of a "Mujahideen Battalion" in 1992, composed mainly of Arab volunteers in central Bosnia, was a landmark. Today the dynamic of jihad has been reversed and it is Bosnians who are travelling to Arab lands. "There is a war between the West and Islam," says Aimen Dean, who, as a young Saudi Arabian volunteer, travelled to...

For years I have been saying it: Most Americans still don’t know or understand the implications of America’s support of the jihad in Europe, but that’s exactly what Bill Clinton’s intervention in the Balkans was. Clinton sent American soldiers to fight alongside Bosnian mujahedeen against the Serb Christians in the Bosnia war. The Democrats aligned with the jihad then and the Democrats align with the jihad now, despite the thousands of Americans slaughtered at their hand. Here is yet more of the unending poisonous yield of Clinton’s vicious ill-conceived war. I continue to take heat for my support of...

ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — It was one of the biggest nights in Croatia's sporting calendar: a European Championship soccer qualifying match with Italy. Seconds after kick-off in a game beamed around the world, a gigantic swastika materialized on the pitch under the shocked gaze of European soccer officials. The swastika, sprayed by an unknown vandal with a chemical that became visible only when floodlights went on to start the game, has become the most potent symbol of a rise in ultra-nationalist sentiment that appears to be bleeding into the mainstream population in the European Union's newest member state. But it's...

The pitch in Split, Croatia, appeared to show the pattern of a swastika during Friday's Euro 2016 qualifier.SPLIT, Croatia -- Croatia could face punishment by UEFA after a swastika pattern could be seen on the pitch for its European Championship qualifying match against Italy. The Nazi symbol was clearly marked in the middle of the half Italy was attacking in the first period of Friday's 1-1 draw. Ground staff attempted to cover the symbol up during the half-time interval but were unable to do so and the Croatian Football Federation expressed its regret over the incident and confirmed the symbol...

Alexander Pollak (center) poses with his team of supporters at the Humble Rotary luncheon June 10, 2015.Humble resident, Alexander Pollak, has made it his mission to bring the atrocities at the concentration camp, Jasenovac, to light. Pollak’s father, along with countless others, perished at Jasenovac. Jasenovac is a name that is not as widely recognized, but is among one of the worst World War II concentration camps. Located in Croatia, Jasenovac’s existence remains under the radar because its records were intentionally destroyed. Pollak had the chance to share his mission during the Humble Rotary luncheon June 10. Pollak’s friend, Michelle...

Submit to the Lord and you will find, Breakthrough of a new kind, For in submission Heaven becomes clear, And you will see into things others fear, For The Father's Heart is Pure Above All, And only The Holy may access and call, For The Eyes of The Cherubim guard what is pure, So only the Holy are able to endure . . . Isaiah 6:5-8 5 Then said I, Woe is me! For I am undone and ruined, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for...

Efraim Zuroff, director of the Jerusalem Office of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (AFP Photo/Christof Stache) Zagreb (AFP) - The Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Center on Tuesday urged Croatia to stop paying pensions to people who served in the country's World War II Nazi-allied armed forces, labelling the policy an insult to their victims. "In view of the horrendous war crimes committed in the so-called Independent State of Croatia (NDH)... such a policy is inherently mistaken," the centre's chief Nazi hunter Efraim Zuroff said in a letter to Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic. Paying pensions to members of the WWII Ustasha armed forces...

Even small differences in economic growth make a big difference to living standards over time. I frequently share this chart, which highlights how long it takes to double economic output based on different growth rates. I also use real-world examples to show how some nations become much richer than other nations within just a few decades because of better policy and faster growth.HereÂ’s another way to approach the issue. LetÂ’s use a hypothetical example to reinforce the importance of growth. If we went back to 1870 and assumed our economyÂ’s nominal growth rate was one percentage point slower than it...

Explanation: Earth's April showers include the Lyrid Meteor Shower, observed for more than 2,000 years when the planet makes its annual passage through the dust stream of long-period Comet Thatcher. A grain of that comet's dust, moving 48 kilometers per second at an altitude of 100 kilometers or so, is swept up in this night sky view from the early hours of April 21. Flashing toward the southeastern horizon, the meteor's brilliant streak crosses the central region of the rising Milky Way. Its trail points back toward the shower's radiant in the constellation Lyra, high in the northern springtime sky...

The world’s newest microcountry wants to become its foremost tax haven. Liberland, which sits on 2.7 square-miles of land along the Danube River between Serbia and Croatia, was founded earlier this month and plans to have only voluntary taxes. "We don’t want the state to take money from the people," Vít Jedlička, a native of Prague and Liberland's new president, told Business Insider in a phone interview. "We want to have voluntary taxes." Elected into office by a three-person committee, Jedlička says he started Liberland to “turn the concept of a state upside down.” After working as a financial analyst...

Welcome to Liberland, population 250,000…and anyone else looking for a tax haven. A self-professed Libertarian politician from the Czech Republic says he has created a new, sovereign country on the Croatian-Serbia border where citizens decide their own tax burden, property and individual rights are respected and the national motto is "Live and Let Live."

On your next holiday in Eastern Europe, make sure to include Liberland in your itinerary. In fact, if you wish, you are just in time to apply for citizenship of this newly founded country; you may just become one of the lucky 3-5000 people to be selected to form part of this new nation.

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.

Leaving Kosovo: Exodus of young people as frustration soars By Guy De Launey BBC News, Kosovo 22 March 2015 From the section Europe "We are like two million birds in one cage, but we are hoping for a better life" The scene in Mitrovica's 7 Arte Cafe seems convivial enough. Fairy lights twinkle, a mixture of Albanian and English-language hits play over the sound system and the 20-somethings gathered around the tables regularly break into laughter. But the joviality papers over a grim reality for these young people. Kosovo may have unilaterally declared independence from Serbia seven years ago, but...

The photo is taken during the division training at Neuhammer. The romantic notions that Himmler had about the Bosnian Muslims were probably significant in the division’s genesis. He was personally fascinated by the Islamic faith and believed that Islam created fearless soldiers. He envisioned the creation of a Bosnian SS division constituted solely of Bosnian Muslims in a manner similar to the Bosnian divisions of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many of these soldiers came from Bosnia, and it was a conscious decision to fight the Communist Partisans and the nationalist Chetniks. The Nazis tried to cater to the Muslim religious...

Megan Gannon March 14, 2015The eight eagle talons from Krapina arranged with an eagle phalanx that was also found at the site. (Luka Mjeda, Zagreb) Long before they shared the landscape with modern humans, Neanderthals in Europe developed a sharp sense of style, wearing eagle claws as jewelry, new evidence suggests. Researchers identified eight talons from white-tailed eagles — including four that had distinct notches and cut marks — from a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal cave in Croatia. They suspect the claws were once strung together as part of a necklace or bracelet. "It really is absolutely stunning," study author David Frayer,...