Free Republic

The United States is offering some breathing room in its seemingly ironclad set of sanctions against Iran, underscoring the difficulty the U.S. and other countries may have in truly freezing out the Iranian regime. The State Department on Tuesday announced exemptions for 11 countries from the newly passed economic sanctions expected to hit Iran's financial and energy sectors. By summer, the U.S. is expected to penalize nations that make oil purchases through Iran's central bank unless they can show they've made a significant reduction in their Iranian oil supply.

Once again the world economy has proved the naysayers wrong and there's been a "real rebound" so far this year, Barclays CEO Robert Diamond told CNBC Wednesday. "One of the lessons we’ve learned in the last couple of years is every time it’s doom and gloom ... the economy is far more resilient," he said. "We see China at 8 percent to 9 percent growth, and reduction in unemployment [cnbc explains] in the U.S. So we’ve seen a real rebound." That even extends to Europe, which was stabilized by the European Central Bank's [cnbc explains] second liquidity injection. President Mario...

If Canada’s “green” media — especially in the Parliamentary Press Gallery — demanded the same standards of accountability of themselves as they do of politicians, they would be killing entire forests right now apologizing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Why? Because in sidestepping the economically suicidal stampede onto the green energy bandwagon which they relentlessly shilled for, Harper was right and they — along with the Liberals, NDP, Bloc and Greens — were wrong. Today, so-called “green” energy is in retreat all over the developed world, as taxpayers and consumers in countries that blindly raced into it are in open...

BRUSSELS—A six-point plan drafted by France and Germany has suggested corporate tax "coordination," an EU financial transactions tax and the redeployment of EU funds in troubled countries as ways to spur growth and jobs. Following Standard & Poor's recent downgrade of nine euro-countries, including France, in which the ratings agency warned that austerity and budget cuts are not the way out of recession, Paris and Berlin have teamed up once more and drafted a six-page paper called "Ways out of the crisis—strengthen growth now!" The paper—seen by EUobserver—is supposed to be discussed at the EU summits on 30 January and...

Vaclav Havel, the Czech Republic's first president after the Velvet Revolution against communist rule, has died at the age of 75. The former dissident playwright, who suffered from prolonged ill-health, died on Sunday morning, his secretary Sabina Tancecova said. As president, he presided over Czechoslovakia's transition to democracy and a free-market economy.

...Turkey has grown in influence and authority as a regional power in the Western Balkans, Central and South Asia and the Horn of Africa. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has been a key interlocutor, not least on Afghanistan where he made a huge personal contribution to last month's conference in Istanbul. With Turkey as host, for the first time, Afghanistan's neighbours have agreed to implement political and security measures to underpin the cause of reconciliation... Turkish economic growth has been exponential. Turkey is the 16th largest economy in the world and will assume the Presidency of the G20 in 2015....

Britain ranks below Peru in a new analysis by one of the world’s biggest fund managers of the risk to investors who buy government bonds. Norway, Sweden and Switzerland are the least risky bond issuers among 44 countries analysed in the BlackRock Sovereign Risk Index. At the other end of the scale, also in descending order, Egypt, Portugal and Greece are reckoned to be the most risky. Britain falls near the middle of this new world order, ranking directly below Russia, China, Czech Republic, Israel and Peru. Some small comfort may be taken from the fact that gilts issued by...

The ruling euroskeptic ODS party in the Czech Republic wants to push for a referendum on the country's future eurozone accession, claiming that the rules have changed since 2003 when Czechs said yes to the EU and the euro. The recent agreement on another bailout for Greece and on boosting the eurozone's bailout fund is fuelling Czech calls for a referendum, said Czech MEP Jan Zahradil, leader of the European Conservatives and Reformists. "We should allow non-eurozone members—such as my country, the Czech Republic—to decide again whether they wish to enter. We signed up to a monetary union, not a...

Czech fighter contract as Gripen deal runs down Fighter manufacturers are preparing to battle for the right to provide the planes that should protect Czech airspace after 2015 © ČESKÁ POZICE A fight between the Gripen JAS-39 and F-16 to patrol Czech airspace looks on the cards The clock is ticking down to the expiry of the 2015 contract under which JAS-39 Gripen supersonic jet fighters hired from the Swedish government to protect Czech skies. And while the date might still seem a long way off, speculation has been mounting about whether a deal for the Gripen planes will be...

PRAGUE (AP) -- They're the Czech Republic's fourth-largest political party, but the hardline Communists could soon be outlawed if the center-right government has its way. It's more than two decades since communism collapsed here, but the survivors and ideological heirs to the party that ruled from 1948 until the "Velvet Revolution" of 1989 are under increasing political pressure. Petr Necas' government has taken the first step toward a possible ban by asking the Interior Ministry to work on a legal complaint to make it happen. A study commissioned by a Senate committee compiled numerous complaints from lawmakers about their conduct....

A mysterious ice ball has appeared in Milovice forest in the Czech Republic, with some reports suggesting it could be an 'alien' object. The giant hailstone measures an impressive 2m in diameter, according to the Examiner, and a witness was able to take a video of the spectacle to pop up on YouTube. This supposed 'alien' ice block was discovered in the Czech Republic (YouTube) Judging by the shakiness of the film, the witness presumably believes it really could be some form of UFO, a view seemingly supported by the news provider, which received a tip-off about it from...

Iraq says ready to buy Czech-made combat jets Iraq is ready to buy light attack aircraft, offered for sale by the Czech republic earlier this month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said after talks with his Czech counterpart in Baghdad. The visit to Baghdad by Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas, which began on Monday, focused on bilateral economic and political cooperation. In mid-April, the Czech Republic announced its plans to offer Iraq 24 L-159 combat aircraft and help in modernizing the Iraqi helicopter fleet. The single-seat L-159 ALCA is a light multi-role combat aircraft designed for a variety of air-to-air,...

Czech Republic may sell combat jets to Iraq The Czech Republic is planning to offer Iraq a number of light attack aircraft and help Baghdad to modernize its helicopter fleet, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg said. Czech Prime Minister Petr Necas will visit Iraq on May 23-24 to promote closer economic cooperation with Baghdad and sign an agreement on mutual protection of investments. "The Czech Republic will offer Iraq L-159 combat aircraft, and we are also ready to take part in the upgrading of Iraqi helicopters," Schwarzenberg said on Monday after a meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari in...

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

Communist Czechoslovakia delivered 181 L-39 Albatros fighter planes to Libya in the 1980s that can still be used by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the current unrest there, daily Lidove Noviny (LN) writes Saturday. Albatros's predecessor L-29 Delfin ("Dolphin") proved an ideal weapon in the struggle against ground targets such as in the conflict in Nigeria in the late 1960s, LN writes. The history may repeat. Delfin helped massacre the rebels in the Nigerian province of Biafra in the late 1960s and then Gaddafi used the Albatrosses to put down a rebellion in Benghazi and other Libyan towns in 1979,...

Early in the morning of 6 May 1945, American soldiers from the 2d Cavalry Group, Third Army, under the command of General George S. Patton, reached south-western Bohemia and decisively helped in the liberation of the city of Pilsen in what is now the Czech Republic. It wasn't until the fall of Communism that the citizens of Pilsen finally learned who it was that liberated their city and so every year since 1990 the city has held a "Liberation Festival" to honor American soldiers. The festival has become a local tradition and many American and Allied veterans make it a...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Children raised in homes heated by coal may suffer stunted growth from prolonged exposure to indoor air pollution, according to a study of families in the Czech Republic. By age 3, children who lived in households where coal was used for heat were about a half-inch shorter, on average, than those raised in homes that relied on other forms of heating fuel. The effect on growth was even greater for children exposed to both coal and cigarette smoke at home, according to the researchers, who report their findings in the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent...

Czechs unwittingly marred U.S. secret arms purchase - press Prague - The Czech Foreign Ministry in 2005 unwittingly prevented a secret attempt of the United States at buying Russian air-to-surface missiles via Belarus, the daily Pravo writes today, referring to information that the Wikileaks server provided to the Belarusian Internet daily Naviny.by. According to the document of the U.S. Embassy in Prague, the U.S. Navy wanted to get 23 Kh-31 missiles, known in the anti-radiation and anti-shipping versions, among others. After Moscow blocked a direct attempt of Czech and Ukrainian mediators to buy the missiles, Washington decided to try it...

President Obama cancelled anti-missile shield plans in Poland and the Czech Republic to get Russia support for UN sanctions against Iran, documents made public by Wikileaks reveal. (snip) The whistle blowing web site, publishing diplomatic cables and other documents via The New York Times, the Guardian (UK) and other media outlets, show that George Bush’s anti-missile shield plan to station 10 interceptor rockets in Poland not far from the Kaliningrad (Russia) border and a radar system in the Czech Republic was seen as an obstacle by Washington in getting tougher sanctions against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Guest post by John A. President Vaclav Klaus last nightLast night in London, I had the privilege to listen to and meet the President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus at a meeting of the Global Warming Policy Foundation. (I even got to practice some of my few words of Czech, when he signed my copy of “Blue Planet in Green Shackles“)My impression is he was quite the opposite of a machine politician, and very much a formidable intellect. By trade, President Klaus is an economist of first rank, all too familiar with the limitations of mathematical modeling as well...