Free Republic

"Sweden’s 318,000 “Syrian” refugees, or migrants, will cost the country a bare minimum of $18.6 billion USD in 2017. That’s 19% of Sweden’s central government’s annual budget, and 3.2% of their GDP—imagine if the US spent $608 billion a year on refugees, same proportions. That’s just over $58,490 per refugee per year. For reference, the average Swedish household’s disposable income is only $28,859 USD per year. Of this, $8.7 billion are the hidden costs of increased migrant crime incidents (specifically, increased rates of rape and sexual assault)—which the government refuses to publicize. Furthermore, migrants are not contributing to Sweden’s economy—of...

Marine Le Pen's...message resonated most in parts of France with lower incomes...a Reuters analysis of voting in Sunday's first round shows....

France goes to the polls on Sunday for the first round of a bitterly fought presidential election, crucial to the future of Europe and a closely-watched test of voters' anger with the political establishment. Nearly 47 million voters will decide, under tight security, whether to back a pro-EU centrist newcomer, a scandal-ridden veteran conservative who wants to slash public spending, a far-left eurosceptic admirer of Fidel Castro or appoint France's first woman president, to shut borders and ditch the euro.

Rome (AFP) - Pope Francis on Saturday described some of Europe's refugee centres as "concentration camps" as he paid tribute to an unknown Christian woman slain for her faith in front of her Muslim husband. "These refugee camps -- so many are concentration camps, crowded with people... because international accords seem more important than human rights," Francis said in impromptu remarks at a ceremony in memory of modern day Christian martyrs. Departing from his prepared script and appearing unusually emotional as he spoke, the 80-year-old pontiff said he wanted the woman to be remembered along with all the other martyrs...

EUROPE is preparing for another migrant crisis over fears Turkey’s newly empowered President Erdogan will turn his back on the nation’s long-awaited EU membership . In such an event, Europe will be stuck with 3 million more migrants, which is highly likely, as the agreement Erdogan made to take them in “during the height of the migrant crisis” is looking increasingly like a dead letter. Back in November, Erdogan threatened to “open the gates for migrants to enter Europe” if the EU “blocked membership talks.” Erdogan’s aspirations to rule the Islamic world have taken Turkey down an anti-democratic, anti-secularist path...

UK PM Theresa May announces plan to call snap general election on 8 June. She said Britain needed certainty, stability and strong leadership following the EU referendum.

How many refugees has the US taken in the last year? And how many asylum seekers? Are they classed as the same? And where are they today? Most importantly, were adequate checks in place to ensure that not only do they have a valid claim, but also that there are no disqualifying factors? As you’d imagine, not only are there contradictory answers to all of these questions, but the information seems purposely obfuscated. President Trump has been calling for an overhaul of the vetting system for refugees (where either no adequate paperwork is available for asylum application, or there are...

When Islamic supremacists get a whiff of weakness, they zero in with calculated determination. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated: “They said a century ago that we were the ‘sick man.’ Now they are the ‘sick man.’ Europe is collapsing.” Erdogan, a dangerous combination of ruthless and off-the-hinges, recently declared a clash between “the cross and the crescent” over an EU headscarf ban in the workplace, while his foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu declared that “holy wars” will soon begin in Europe. Erdogan also stated: “You have seen what happened in Europe. Why did they go crazy? Why did they go...

The European Parliament has taken the first step in potentially revoking visa-free travel of Americans to the European Union. The parliament’s civil liberties committee voted to end Americans’ visa-free travel to European Union countries, forcing the European Commission to reintroduce visa requirements on in-coming American travellers. The vote gives the Commission two months to adopt the needed legal measures revoking a reciprocity agreement the European Union had with the United States on travel. As long as neither the EU Parliament nor the Council of the European Union object, American travellers will be forced to apply for entry into the EU...

The Leftist-Liberal demographic engineering project of the European Union violates the rights of indigenous European peoples, goes against global trends towards the territorial partition of ethnic groups, and contradicts expert research on conditions that create ethnic and political conflict. The continuous practice of settling large numbers of non-Europeans into regions already inhabited by European indigenous populations but who have very low fertility rates inevitably alters the ethnic compositions of European nation-states, renders Europeans demographic minorities in their own homelands, affects the distribution of political power and the relations between ethnic groups, and causes a variety of other conflicts and problems,...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — The eurozone’s top official said “fatigue may have played a role” for comments he made last month that unleashed a storm of criticism across southern Europe. In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, published Monday, Jeroen Dijsselbloem said the scale of the backlash made it look like “I committed a war crime.”

In a rare interview, Red Bull boss and Austria’s richest man Dietrich Mateschitz has slammed mass migration and political correctness, warning they threaten to destroy Europe’s true cultural diversity. Speaking to Kleine Zeitung, the Formula 1 investor called the decision of key politicians to open the borders — which resulted in Europe’s migration crisis — “unpardonable”, noting that “if a company were to make mistakes on the same scale, it would have gone broke”. Highlighting the “hypocrisies” of what he called the “refugees welcome brigade” with regards to migration, Mateschitz said: “I am talking about the fact that none of...

Only a fortnight after a vehicular terrorist attack in Westminster, London, another similar attack took place in Stockholm, Sweden. On one of the city's main shopping streets, a vehicle was once again used as a battering-ram against the bodies of members of the public. As in Nice, France. As in Berlin. As so many times in Israel.Amid this regular news there is an air of defeatism -- a terrible lack of policy and lack of solutions. How can governments stop people driving trucks into pedestrians? Is it something we must simply get used to, as France's former Prime Minister Manuel...

STOCKHOLM — Swedish police said Saturday that they believe they have captured the man accused of turning a beer truck into a weapon a day earlier by driving it into a crowd of pedestrians in a rampage that left four people dead. Authorities did not divulge the man’s name but said he is a 39-year-old from Uzbekistan who had been known to security services as “a marginal character” for the past year. Police said that when they first investigated him, they had found no connections to extremism. Authorities did not say when the man had come to Sweden. The arrest...

A TRUCK has driven into crowds on a crowded street in central Stockholm. Some on social media say people have been spotted on the ground. Armed police are in the area, and a number of casualties have been reported. There are unconfirmed reports of at least three people killed in the incident.

In a violent attack causing trepidation amongst Paris’ Jewish community, a 66-year-old Orthodox woman, Sarah Halimi, was murdered to the cry of ‘‘Allahu Akbar’’ early Tuesday morning, pushed from the window of her top-floor apartment in Paris’ 11th arrondissement.The accused, a 27-year-old of Muslim origin known to police for a string of offenses, had broken into the apartment of his victim – reportedly scaling the exterior wall from the floor below where he lived with his parents – to stab his victim before throwing her to her death.The lifeless body of Ms. Halimi was found on the ground beneath her...

Papers from George Soros’ Open Society Foundation show the true extent of his manipulation of the 2014 European Union elections. It is well known that Soros has a belief in open border immigration and the EU project, it is also known that he regularly funds organizations to promote his ideas and beliefs, but the true amount of money and coordination involved is truly staggering. His stated aims are to defeat that “Populist, anti-EU parties” at the ballot box. He does this through groups that set up projects and events. A few examples you can see in the report include: Convincing...

In Europe, Muslims have greater freedom to follow their faith than Christians do, the head of an anti-discrimination group has said. Martin Kugler, Austrian historian and founder of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, said Christians were being marginalised on the continent while Muslims are treated much more carefully. Speaking to ACI Prensa, the Spanish edition of the Catholic News Agency, Mr. Kugler accused Europe’s elites of pressuring Christians into hiding their faith while permitting Muslims to display theirs. Europe has witnessed a secularist offensive, he added, but politicians have different criteria in dealing with Christians...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán claims European politicians are thanking his government “behind closed doors” for its robust action on illegal migration, alleviating pressure on countries such as Germany – but “political double-dealing” and a “culture of hypocrisy” prevent them from doing it in public. “Hungary is situated on Europe’s external border. So if Hungary’s external border is endangered, then Europe’s external border is endangered. Hungary is simultaneously protecting its own external borders and Europe’s external borders,” the Fidesz leader explained in an interview with Kossuth Rádió. “And if we weren’t protecting Europe’s external borders, the Austrians and the Germans...

Pro-European Union parties won the Dutch elections, despite concerns that the far-right Freedom Party might ride a Europe-wide tide of populism to victory. For now, the threat of the EU's demise has been postponed, but not eliminated. American conservatives do not seem particularly bothered by the possible demise of the EU. President Trump, for his part, has expressed ambivalence over the EU, embracing Euro-skeptics such as the U.K. Independence Party, even saying the EU's future does not matter to the United States. The truth is, it matters tremendously — not least for American trade, foreign policy and national security.