Free Republic

Girls throw flower petals during a procession celebrating the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ in Minsk, Belarus, in May 2011. (CNS photo/Vladimir Nikolsky, Reuters) There is a place in Slovakia called Bardejovska Nova Ves where pro-lifers have erected a poignant monument to the Unborn Child. It portrays a weeping mother, on her knees before a translucent child figure, depicted extending its hand towards the mother’s head in a gesture of forgiveness.   The heartbreaking scene, placed at the geographical center of the European continent, brings home to observers the common cultural ground the remains at the end...

Geneticists from the University of Leicester have discovered that most European men descend from just a handful of Bronze Age forefathers, due to a 'population explosion' several thousand years ago. The project, which was funded by the Wellcome Trust, was led by Professor Mark Jobling from the University of Leicester's Department of Genetics and the study is published in the journal Nature Communications. The research team determined the DNA sequences of a large part of the Y chromosome, passed exclusively from fathers to sons, in 334 men from 17 European and Middle Eastern populations. This research used new methods for...

Prime Minister David Cameron has said the in/out referendum will take place by 2017. A bill paving the way for the referendum was included in the Queen's Speech. BBC political correspondent Ross Hawkins said the precise wording of the question had not been confirmed. But it is expected to allow those who want Britain to remain in the EU to style themselves as the Yes campaign, with the question expected to be along the lines of: "Should the UK remain a member of the EU?"

BRUSSELS (Sputnik) – Islamic extremists in Belgium have publicly threatened to kill the mayor of the Belgian city of Antwerp, Bart De Wever, if he does not convert to Islam, local media reported Monday. A sign written in French stating threats against de Wever, who is also the head of the nationalist political party the New Flemish Alliance, was placed on one of the main squares of Antwerp. Experts are currently assessing the seriousness of the action and the message. “I always warned that we will not get rid of the threat from Islamic extremists in the near future. This...

Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski conceded defeat to conservative challenger Andrzej Duda in Sunday's presidential election, a result that will set alarm bells ringing for the government, which faces its own election race later this year. Komorowski had originally been seen as a shoo-in for another term in office, and his defeat reflected a desire among voters for new faces, and a sense that Poland's new-found prosperity was not being shared out equally. The outgoing president, an ally of Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz, announced he was conceding defeat after an exit poll showed he had won 47 percent to 53 percent...

Regular readers of my column know that after tax season is over my wife and I take off for a while and typically travel the world. We do not do tours or cruises as we want to be in amongst the locals to touch and feel what is going on wherever we are visiting. This year our trip was to Spain and Croatia with short stops in Milan and London. We also spent some time in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. We started in Spain, a wonderful country we had not visited since 1987. There are many areas to visit...

SOUTHERN SHUNEH Jordan--Borders must be "open to Syrians everywhere," including in Europe, to help ease the burden of Middle Eastern countries that have absorbed close to 4 million Syrian refugees, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said Saturday. Antonio Guterres also appealed to the international community to boost development aid to refugee host countries such as Jordan and Lebanon. "They are the first line of defense for global collective security and they are pillars, essential pillars, for regional security," Guterres told The Associated Press at a regional World Economic Forum conference. "If they fall, the consequences will be dramatic...

Europe is now being flooded with immigrants, chiefly from Africa or the Arab world, those least likely to assimilate well. As Europe confronts rapidly escalating migration crisis driven by war, persecution and poverty in an arc of strife from West Africa to Afghanistan, even high-level European officials are beginning to admit the obvious. -- The Washington Post Europe is being overrun. Now, this would not necessarily be a disaster, if the immigrants were assimilable en masse. As one who scours old history books, there was a massive scare around 1900 that the United States was accepting too many non-Anglo-Saxons. Chinese...

The frigate Aquitaine, the first unit in the multi-mission frigate program (FREMM), has successfully fired its first naval cruise missile on May 19 on the firing ranges of the DGA missile testing centre off Levant Island. This is the first time that a European surface ship has fired a cruise missile. On May 12, the frigate also successfully fired its first Exocet MM40 surface-to-surface missile. The French Navy launches an MBDA Naval Cruise Missile from FREMM Frigate Aquitaine for the first time. Picture: L.Bernardin©Marine Nationale The two synthesis firings prepared by the crew of the French Navy, the DGA teams...

Even while the Civil War raged, slaves in Cuba could be heard singing, “Avanza, Lincoln, avanza! Tu eres nuestra esperanza!” (Onward, Lincoln, Onward! You are our hope!) – as if they knew, even before the soldiers fighting the war far to the North and long before most politicians understood, that the war in America would change their lives, and the world. The secession crisis of 1860-1861 threatened to be a major setback to the world antislavery movement, and it imperiled the whole experiment in democracy. If slavery was allowed to exist, and if the world’s leading democracy could fall apart...

<p>LONDON — The European Union on Monday approved the use of military force to take on migrant smugglers in the Mediterranean, significantly escalating Europe’s response to a crisis that has left at least 1,800 people dead this year.</p> <p>The decision allows European governments to move ahead with plans for a naval operation that has been taking shape for weeks and that officials say is crucial to any attempt to confront the burgeoning tide of smuggler vessels ferrying migrants from North ­Africa to Europe.</p>

Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel married his partner Gauthier Destenay on Friday, becoming the first European Union leader to enter a gay marriage. Teri Schultz tells our Newscast unit that Bettel becomes the second world leader to do so. Iceland's Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir married her partner five years ago. The interesting part about this development is that gay marriage is a relatively new thing in Luxembourg. As The Guardian reports, Bettel's party won a prominent spot in the ruling coalition after campaigning for same-sex marriage The Guardian adds: "[Same-sex marriage] was previously knocked down in 2007 by the then...

Europe remains a sitting duck whilst it passively sits on the sidelines uttering pious platitudes Islamic State now has the potential to break out of Syria and Iraq and into the heart of Europe without a shot being fired in anger by the Europeans to repel Islamic State’s stated aims of re-establishing the Caliphate and with it the supremacy of Islam world-wide. This previously dismissed possibility has become an emerging reality with the record flow of hundreds of thousands of Moslems into Europe by boat in 2014 - seeking asylum as their homes and lives in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan,Yemen...

ANTALYA, Turkey (AP) — In a distinctly different note for a military alliance meeting, European officials ended a NATO meeting with a spirited rendition of "We Are The World." Taking a break from issues such as the war in Ukraine and instability in the Middle East, NATO and other officials accepted an invitation by a Turkish band to sing a "last song for peace" at a dinner Wednesday hosted by Turkey as the alliance's foreign ministers met near the Mediterranean city of Antalya.

Stockholm (AFP) - A Swedish peace group said Tuesday it has lowered a sonar device into the Baltic Sea off Stockholm to deter Russian submarines, emitting the message "This Way if You Are Gay". The Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society's (SPAS) cheeky device emits the message in Morse code and is designed to scare off subs from Russia, which does not share Sweden's acceptance of homosexuality. The so-called Singing Sailor also features a flashing pink neon outline of a seaman clad only in white underpants and a boater's hat, gyrating his hips above the text "Welcome to Sweden -- Gay...

David Cameron is to set out a string of new powers to tackle radicalisation, saying the UK has been a "passively tolerant society" for too long. The PM will tell the National Security Council a counter-extremism bill will be in the Queen's Speech on 27 May. The bill will include new immigration rules, powers to close down premises used by extremists and "extremism disruption orders". Mr Cameron will say a "poisonous" extremist ideology must be confronted.

The recent string of attacks against Jews in Europe has driven many Jews away from an active Jewish life, said the president of one of Europe’s leading Orthodox Jewish networks on Tuesday. “We’re dealing with a large number of Jews who because of the risk involved, and terrorist attacks, have stopped coming to Jewish events,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt told the Algemeiner. “It’s more important [for these Jews] to stay alive than to stay Jewish.” The 51-year-old Swiss-born Conference of European Rabbis (CER) president, who is also Chief Rabbi of Moscow, said apathy was a greater risk to the Jews in...

Sweden Deputy PM Åsa Romsom says that what's happening in the Mediterranean is same as Auschwitz. Slightly over the top. Mildly speaking.

Several people have been killed in a shooting in the Swiss canton of Aargau, police say.

An EU army is Germany’s ‘long term goal’ according to one of its ministers. Ursula von der Leyen called for defence cooperation to be strengthened so that the continent can respond quickly to international crises.