Free Republic

Dismissing the notion of any Israeli connection to the ongoing protests in Iran, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised the “heroic” demonstrators protesting against the “cruel regime” in a YouTube video published Monday. “I heard today Iran’s President [Hassan] Rouhani’s claim that Israel is behind the protests in Iran. It’s not only false. It’s laughable. And unlike Rouhani, I will not insult the Iranian people. They deserve better,” the prime minister began. […] “Iran’s cruel regime wastes tens of billions of dollars spreading hate. This money could have built schools and hospitals,” Netanyahu said. “No wonder mothers and fathers are marching...

"I think we are heading towards disaster." * Reports of alleged links between Islamic charities and terrorism or extremism surged to a record high, according to the Charity Commission, a charity watchdog. * Azad Ali, an Islamist who has said that he supports killing British soldiers, was named a director of Muslim Engagement and Development (Mend), a controversial Muslim pressure group which advises the British government. Ali said that the jihadist attack at Westminster on March 22, 2017 was not an act of terrorism. * "Politicians tell us they are unafraid, but they are never the victims. How easy to...

Chancellor Angela Merkel will tell Germans that European cooperation is “the decisive question of the coming years” in a New Year’s Eve broadcast Sunday, as her conservatives eye tricky coalition talks. Merkel will say that “27 states in Europe must be persuaded more strongly than ever to hold together as a community,” according to a script of the annual televised address released by her office. […] As for Germany, its “future is bound indivisibly with the future of Europe,” the chancellor will declare, recalling that Berlin hopes to work with France’s pro-European President Emmanuel Macron to future-proof the EU. ”The...

In Paris's 12th arrondissement, on Bercy Street by the banks of the River Seine, on the 13th floor of the Ministry of Finance is France's tax authority headquarters. Something has been afoot there recently that is liable to upset French Jews and spook their relations with the country in which they live. Under the radar, a secret department has been created with the sole purpose of handling tax evasion by French Jews. "Globes" can reveal for the first time the details of the secret department that is targeting Jews in France and new immigrants from France in Israel.

President Emmanuel Macron vowed to pursue his reform agenda with the "same intensity" in 2018 and kickstart a "French renaissance" in his first New Year's address as leader, which comes as the economy picks up. Despite winning May's presidential election on a promise to ditch politics as usual Macron stuck with tradition in Sunday's televised address from the Elysee Palace, which began and ended with the national anthem. Seated at his desk, wearing a dark suit and tie, Macron cited some of his achievements in his first seven months in his office, including his overhaul of the labour code. "These...

"We are moving from a world dominated by very exclusive trans-Atlantic relations towards a rebalancing," Le Maire said, during a two-day trip to Moscow in December. France wants to create a trade "backbone" stretching from Europe via Moscow to Beijing, the minister revealed. He also criticized the US threat of "extraterritorial sanctions," with which Washington tries to pressure foreign companies with operations in the US into forgoing business in Russia. Extraterritorial sanctions would make the US "the de facto gendarme of global trade," Mr Le Maire warned. "That is contrary to our vision of a multilateral global organization," he warned.

In a trans-Atlantic phone call the young French leader warned the consequences would be severe. However, Mr Tump clearly ignored Mr Macron’s advice and yesterday made the bombshell announcement. Adding his voice to near worldwide condemnation Mr Macron said he ‘deplored’ the US president’s unilateral decision to officially recognise Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, saying that the city’s status should be determined as part of a settlement between the Israelis and the Palestinians. During a news conference in Algiers, Algeria, he said: “It is a regrettable decision that France does not approve of, and that goes against international law and the...

A German police union boss has criticized organizers of Berlin’s annual open-air New Year’s Eve party for designating a special “safety area” for women, saying it suggests they aren’t safe from assault elsewhere. The comments by Rainer Wendt, who heads the right-leaning DpolG union, come amid an ongoing debate in Germany about how to tackle an increase in sexual assaults. Wendt told the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung daily in an interview published Saturday that establishing such a safe zone sends a “devastating message.” “By doing so, one is saying there are safe zones and unsafe zones” for women that could result...

In an interview with the German newspaper Heilbronner Stimme, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, voiced grave concern Friday over growing anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. She said that public Jewish life is under threat and can only be lived out “in public with police protection and under the most serious security precautions.” Knobloch pointed out the fact that Hanukah celebrations in Berlin and Munich, as well as the large menorahs installed in both cities, were, by necessity, accompanied by massive, around-the-clock police protection. A large menorah installed in the city of Heilbronn,...

The editor-in-chief of Die Welt, one of Germany’s leading right-wing newspapers, triggered a social media meltdown on Christmas by complaining about supposed left-wing bias in Germany’s Christmas midnight masses. Ulf Poschardt wondered aloud on Twitter on Christmas Eve: “Who would voluntarily go to a midnight mass if at the end of the sermon he thinks he spent the evening with the Jusos or the Green Youth?” — referring to the youth organizations of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green party, who both represent the left wing of their centrist parties. The statement came a few days after the...

Intelligence levels have fallen in all Scandinavian countries, including Norway and Denmark, according to an analysis. The study was conducted by James Flynn, a leading researcher of intelligence quotient (IQ) measurement, writes Norwegian news agency NTB. IQ in the Scandinavian countries had been on the up for decades, but the trend has now been reversed, according to a report published by journal Intelligence. Measures taken as part of the study have shown that, in Norway, fewer people are reaching higher levels of mathematical and linguistic ability. The trend is similarly prominent in both Denmark and Norway and even more so...

French President Emmanuel Macron has come under fire over his policy on jobless benefits after a press leak pointed to plans to tighten monitoring of people on the dole. The investigative weekly Canard Enchainé, citing an internal memo, said those receiving jobless benefits would be required to submit a monthly report on their job-hunting efforts. Politicians both to the left and the right of the centrist president assailed the idea of a monthly reporting requirement, with the Socialist Party tweeting that it was first mooted by the head of the employers’ federation, Pierre Gattaz. But Macron defended the plan in...

A new survey shows that Germans are losing patience with Frau Merkel, after she has failed to form a new government three months after the national election. The poll, conducted by YouGov for the German Press Agency, shows that 47 percent of respondents want Angela Merkel to step down from her office as German Chancellor before the next national election, scheduled to take place in 2021. Meanwhile, only 36 percent said that if Merkel is eventually re-elected as Chancellor, that she should stay in office for the full four years. The results of the poll show a marked drop in...

Since opening its doors in 2015, no unaccompanied minors have been deported from Germany. That is soon set to change, as Berlin has started building centers in Morocco to house deported minors, according to a report. The German government started constructing two youth centers in northern Morocco to house local “street children” as well as unaccompanied Moroccan minors who have been deported by Germany, according to a report from the Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday. The pilot project creates a legal pathway for Germany to start deporting youths without needing to necessarily locate their families first. In recent years,...

Last week, the finance ministers of Europe's five biggest economies — Germany, France, the UK, Spain and Italy — wrote an anxious letter to their American colleague, US Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin, and copied it to all senior Republican politicians in the Congress and Senate. The letter's thrust: The draft US tax bill, if passed as written a week ago, would represent a break with global fair-taxation rules as applied to corporations, and represent a thinly disguised form of trade war. "The United States is Europe's single most important trade and investment partner," the finance ministers wrote. "It is important...

The United States has publicly warned United Nations member states not to support Thursday’s UN General Assembly resolution denouncing US President Donald Trump’s declaration that Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. The text will also call for nations, including the US, not to relocate their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. To date, the US is the only country who said it will do so. The UN General Assembly is scheduled to hold a special emergency session to disavow Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem on Thursday at the request of Yemen, Turkey and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. The resolution is expected to...

Over 100,000 foreign nationals across all age groups were allocated a PPS Number in 2016, an increase of 13% on the year before. The latest report from the Central Statistics Office looked into the number of PPSN (Personal Public Service Number) allocations to foreign nationals over the past six years — from 2011 to 2016. It found that there was a total of 107,767 allocations to foreign nationals across all of last year. […] Just under 52,000 of all the allocations in 2016 registered some form of employment activity that year — marking a 4.1% increase on 2015. In terms...

An Irish politician has brought forward a new bill to the Dáil (Irish parliament) which will attempt to legislate to prevent the spread of fake news stories and articles in Ireland. The groundbreaking proposals were brought forward by opposition party Fianna Fáil in the wake of the influence of bots and fake new articles in politics overseas, especially in the 2016 US Presidential election and the Brexit referendum in the UK. There are concerns that although fake news has not been used so far to influence political debate in Ireland, even in the particularly intense 2016 general election, that this...

After Saturday night brutal gang rape of a young girl in Malmö, the police are now out with a message to the city's population: "Women should not be afraid". Reports SVT News Skåne on Saturday afternoon. However, in Malmö several women are still noticeably shaken.

Finland will leave the European Union and position itself as the Switzerland of the north to protect its independence if Laura Huhtasaari, the presidential candidate of the eurosceptic Finns Party has her way. Finns Party deputy chairman and presidential candidate Laura Huhtasaari poses for a picture at the Finland's Parliament in Helsinki, Finland December 13, 2017. REUTERS/Tuomas Forsell She also told Reuters in an interview she wants to tighten immigration rules. Huhtasaari -- dubbed “Finland’s Marine Le Pen” after France’s National Front leader -- is a long-shot. But she believes she has a real chance in the January election as...