Free Republic

(Nigel Farage at 1:17).....the debate about foreign, overseas influence in Western democracies is a big one. Now I have said from the start that I believe and please tell me that I'm wrong that I believe that Russian interference actually is almost negligible. Its been dreged up as an excuse.....' But I have felt for some time, in fact I've felt for the last six or seven years that there was one major global influence and by the way I'm not infering for a moment anything illegal has been done here but I'm talking one massive attempt by a very...

"It is the greatest success in the history of American foreign policy," Mark Stoler, editor of the George C. Marshall Papers in Lexington, Va. "And it plays to the best American instincts — helping those in need. "In the process, it clearly turned America into the world's superpower. It was the key component of American Cold War strategy. And it was an immediate psychological booster shot to Europe. Marshall's message was: 'Here is a lifeline that you can take advantage of. America is going to be the leader here and accept that mantel of leadership.'" Georges Bidault, France's prime minister...

European ministers meeting in Brussels on Monday have rubber-stamped the EU-27's negotiating position for the Brexit period. The instructions for Michel Barnier, the block's chief negotiator with Britain, set a deadline for December 31, 2020, for the end of the transition, but with the caveat that this period can last longer if necessary. That's highly problematic because the EU demands that Britain accepts all EU laws and the supremacy of the European Court of Justice during this transition. Britain must even abide by the EU's trade policy. This means that while Britain can negotiate trade deals with other countries during...

U.S. President Trump has threatened to confront the European Union over what he calls “very unfair” trade policy toward the United States. Trump has demanded tougher enforcement of trade rules and last week signed into law 30% tariffs on imported solar panels, among the first unilateral trade restrictions made by the administration as part of a broader protectionist agenda. “I’ve had a lot of problems with European Union, and it may morph into something very big from that standpoint, from a trade standpoint,” Trump said .......... ”We cannot get our product in. It’s very, very tough. And yet they send...

Zeman joined the Communist Party during the 1968 Prague Spring reforms. The short-lived period of greater freedom was brutally crushed by a Soviet invasion. Two years later he was purged from the party. Zeman joined the left-leaning Social Democratic party after communism fell, taking its helm in 1993. Five years later, he formed a minority government largely responsible for talks in the run-up to Czech EU accession in 2004. His failed attempt to replace Havel as president in 2003 -- in a vote won by Klaus -- led him to reconsider his priorities and retreat to a countryside house far...

Czech President Milos Zeman has won a second term I'm office following a tight run-off vote against rival Jiri Drahos. Mr. Zeman, who fiercely opposes immigration and objects to EU sanctions against Russia, took 52% of the vote to beat Mr. Drahos, a pro-EU academic with no prior experience. Voter turnout on Sautrday was over 66%. The role of the Czech president is influential: Mr. Zeman can name the prime minister and sign bills passed by parliament into law..... The presidential election has reflected divisions between low-income voters with lower education and those living in rural areas, who tend to...

German leader Angela Merkel said that multilateralism was under threat and said that protectionism is not the answer to the world's problems. "Frankly speaking, the country I have the honor to represent and where I am chancellor has difficulties. And polarization is something that we see in our country as well, which we haven't had for decades," Merkel said. She attributed increasing populism and polarization to both the euro zone crisis and migration crisis seen in Europe over the last few years following an influx of refugees, but said Germany would not shrink from the world stage. "Germany wishes to...

Former Tory party leader/Foreign Secretary William Hague has penned a column for the Daily Telegraph in which he claims Brits must let allies know the country is not "retreating from the world." He argues that allies fear Britain is opting for isolation: Be in no doubt that we benefit enormously from the international presence and reputation of the United Kingdom, be it diplomatic, humanitarian, military or educational. And our friends everywhere are currently looking at us, quizzically and rather searchingly as we negotiate Brexit, to assess whether we are shrinking back from them as well. Is this the UK sorting...

In spite of assurances by the European Union on Monday, the London-based pan-Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat reports that Europe intends to reject Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' request to recognize the PA as a state. According to diplomatic sources, the refusal stems from fear of a worsening the situation between Israel and the PA, and also in order not to appear to respond to United States President Donald Trump's recognition of Jerusalem...

After President Trump allegedly declared certain countries (especially in, but not limited to Africa) "sh*thole countries," "many of us felt a sense of relief," British commentator Katie Hopkins writes at The Rebel. Like many supporters of the president, she believes that, unlike most politicians, Trump is telling it like it is. "Straight talk -- like a blast of fresh air on a clammy bus." Although she could've focused on that and explained why many of the countries mentioned by Trump are indeed not exactly heaven on earth, she had a different perspective. Instead, she asked her Twitter followers who live...

French president Emmanuel Macron shocked Andrew Marr during their interview when he admitted that had France held a referendum on membership of the EU after Brexit, the French people would vote to leave. Twitter lit up after the interview was aired, with many questioning if the French leader had just admitted that he "does not listen to his own people" since he has refused to hold a referendum on the EU.

Die Linke member in the European Parliament (EP) Martina Michels issued a statement and stressed that Erdoğan’s Turkey stockpiling large scale forces to attack Afrin and its surrounding villages is unacceptable. The statement issued by EP-Turkey Relations Delegation Member MEP Martina Michels stresses that the PYD and YPG are the “thorn in the eye” for Erdoğan’s “fantasies of great power”. The statement titled “Erdoğan sends German tanks against Kurdish autonomy” demands the EU to call for the military attacks to stop and states that Erdoğan wants to complete his dreams of suppressing the demands for rights in Northern Kurdistan by...

Belgian doctors fear the number of French people heading over the border to seek help to end their lives could shoot up and are warning that the road to the end is paved with problems. With the number of French people considering euthanasia as a viable way to end their daily suffering on the rise, the burden is largely falling on neighbouring Belgium. While active euthanasia, by which a person deliberately causes the patient's death, remains illegal in France, the procedure became legal in Belgium 15 years ago. What's the law in France? During Francois Hollande's leadership in March 2015,...

Though the official data shows that Italy’s population was growing until 2015 and according to a Eurostat projection it will stabilize within the next decades, the number of indigenous citizens is shrinking with an astonishing pace: every year by a quarter of a million, and this decline will accelerate. That means that the projected demographic growth can only be achieved by mass migration from Africa and Central Asia. Currently most migrants in Italy are from Romania but that number is declining rapidly. There will be less and less migration from other European countries because all European nations are in a...

Horst Seehofer -- the leader of the Christian Democrats (CDU) ally, the Christian Social Union -- is calling on Angela Merkel and Social Democratic Party (SPD) leader Martin Schulz to make sure that the talks between Merkel's CDU and Schulz's SPD are successful. Seehofer says the Social Democrats shooting down the results of the talks on Sunday would absolutely be a "catastrophe" for Germany. When asked by German newspaper Bild whether he has faith in the SPD -- which seems to be internally divided on the question whether or not it should form a coalition with the CDU -- Seehofer...

For the first time since World War II, Sweden is preparing to distribute a civil defense brochure to some 4.7 million households, warning them about the onset of war. The booklet will serve as a manual of “total defense” in case of a war, and provide details on how to secure basic needs such as water, food, and heating, the FT reported. The manual also covers other threats such as cyber attacks, terrorism, and climate change. “All of society needs to be prepared for conflict, not just the military. We haven’t been using words such as total defense or high...

Facebook has said on Wednesday that it will broaden its investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 referendum on Great Britain's membership in the European Union, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company made the announcement after a request from a "committee of U.K. lawmakers." One of those lawmakers is Damian Collins who said he welcomed Facebook's decision. "Facebook has a responsibility," he said. "They recognize the seriousness of the problem and that lots of people, Parliaments, and governments are really concerned about it." That sounds quite fascinating and all, but what The Wall Street Journal fails to mention...

Despite the “rise and fall of the unipolar concert,” China and Russia’s balancing strategies have backfired: they are not leading to multipolarity, but are actually reinforcing unipolarity. The reason is that China and Russia’s balancing strategies have focused on regional “revisionism,” which has provoked powerful responses in East Asia and Europe to contain them. Russia’s balancing strategy has to a large extent proven to be counter-productive. Instead of preventing the expansion of NATO through a “divide and conquer” strategy, or driving a diplomatic wedge between the United States and Europe, Russian revisionism has united NATO...Perhaps most illustrative of all, a...

The progressive billionaire speculator George Soros has said he will ‘fight back’ against the “dominant ideology” of nationalism, whilst admitting that favoured globalist project the European Union is “on the verge of a breakdown”. Wistfully writing that Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) once ‘epitomised the optimism about the spread of Western-style democracy’ after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Financial Times described the scrutiny the global progressive body is experiencing amidst a wave of patriotism and populism and the ‘wilting’ attraction of the leftist agenda. Soros, alluding to the collapse of the USSR, told the left-liberal newspaper: “It’s déjà...

Pic of Mogherini and Abbas shaking hands and smiling, uncopiable. A new report in the London-based Al Hayat newspaper says that Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas will appeal to the European Union in an attempt to sideline US President Donald Trump's role in the Israeli-Arab conflict. The report quoted a senior PA figure who said that Abbas will ask the EU to increase the funding they provide to the PA in order to make up for the budget shortfall should Trump cut American aid to the PA as he has threatened. The source also said that Abbas will "ask...