Free Republic

Speaking at the EEF National Manufacturing Conference in London, Miliband said yesterday (26 February) that “(t)here is no greater threat to the long-term stability and prosperity of Britain and British business than leaving the European Union.” Leaving the European Union is not in Britain’s national interest, the UK opposition leader added. Taking aim at the Conservatives, Miliband said it was, “wrong to play fast and loose with our membership of the European Union.” …

During a visit to Brussels, the President of Bulgaria, a country that depends on Russia for over 90 percent of its gas supplies, accused Vladimir Putin of planning to destroy the EU from the inside. Speaking at a conference organized by the Center of European Policy Studies (CEPS), Bulgaria’s Rossen Plevneliev said that Putin’s propaganda machine was attempting to split the member states of the European Union. The leaders who rule by force across the world have one thing in common—breaking the rules, Plevneliev said, as quoted by Vesselin Zhelev, the correspondent of ClubZ. “See how Mr. Putin today is...

US officials were preparing to deport at least 150 Bosnians suspected of having played a role in the ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Serbs during the war that raged in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, the New York Times reported. Authorities identified 300 suspects in all, which included those who allegedly hid their involvement in war crimes when they came to the US as war victims fleeing the violence in the Balkans. As many as half of these were believed to have played a role at the 1995 genocide in Srebrenica, where Bosnian Serbs killed 8,000 Muslim boys and men. The...

After the president of the Central Council of Jews warned against anti-Semitism in Muslim areas of German cities, his Muslim opposite number agreed that “these fears are justified”. Aiman Mayzek, president of the Central Council of Muslims, told the Berliner Zeitung on Friday that he and his organization were taking a stand against anti-Semitism among Muslims. “Attacks on Jews are an attack on our society,” he said. …

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán denounced multiculturalism and liberalism Friday and vowed to fight a rising wave of migration that he said is threatening to turn his country into a “refugee camp.” In his annual state of the nation speech, Orbán called a multicultural society “a delusion” and defended his conservative government’s attempts to abandon “liberal social policies” that he accused of rejecting Christian culture. […] He was referring to the torrent of migrants who have entered European Union-member Hungary this year, many of them fleeing poverty in Kosovo and seeking to reach Germany and other western nations. …

Igniting fresh controversy, Austria's parliament has approved significant changes to the country's "Law on Islam" — a revamping of a 103-year-old law to expand certain legal protections while also placing new restrictions on Muslim organizations and how adherents practice their faith. While the changes were proposed years ago — long before attacks in France and Denmark by homegrown terrorists with extremist views — the reforms passed Wednesday are intended to "clearly combat" the influence of radical Islam, according to Austria's conservative foreign affairs minister Sebastian Kurz, Agence France-Presse reported.

Russia is busily enlarging its spying network in Europe along the former Soviet KGB model because of the Ukraine crisis, Germany’s domestic intelligence chief warns. While Russian espionage has targeted European countries for many years, “distinct activities” of an old nature have been detected in information-gathering about Western responses to the conflict in Ukraine, media on Thursday quoted Hans-Georg Maaßen as saying. Some tactics of the now defunct Soviet KGB were being revived, such as targeted disinformation and supporting extremist groups with a view to destabilizing a given state, said Maaßen, who heads the Federal Office for the Protection of...

President Vladimir Putin has warned that Russia will cut gas supplies to Ukraine if it fails to pay in advance for future deliveries. Putin said Wednesday that Ukraine’s latest payment would only be good for another three to four days, warning that the cutoff may disrupt transit to Europe. …

British Christian schools could face a European Commission investigation, following complaints from a humanist campaign group. The British Humanist Association (BHA) claims that faith schools breach European Union (EU) equality rules when hiring staff, because they say religious adherence is a “desirable” quality. EU rules state that schools must prove there is a “genuine occupational requirement” in preferring to recruit teachers of faith. IntolerantSpokesman for The Christian Institute, Simon Calvert, said church schools are “hugely popular”, and their ethos is why “they do such a good job of preparing children for life in 21st-century Britain”. “It’s disappointing that humanists seem...

The European Union’s executive has unveiled a vast plan to boost coordination between the EU’s 28 national energy markets to wean Europe off unstable Russian gas supplies and provide cheaper energy for consumers. European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič on Wednesday called it “undoubtedly the most ambitious energy project” since the inception of the EU over half a century ago. He believes that improving links across borders in Europe’s energy grid could save businesses and consumers up to €40 billion ($45.4 billion) a year. A more energy-independent Europe will also increase the EU’s political options in eastern Europe. […] “Our...

RIGA - NATO commanders have given the green-light for the creation of rapid-response force command and control centres in the Baltics and three other countries, National Armed Forces Commander Raimonds Graube confirmed to Latvian Radio. According to the portal lsm.lv, this means that a new unit will be set up in Latvia, and this unit will man and operate the new command and control centre. The unit will be responsible for logistics and organisational exercises, as well as receiving rapid-response forces in crisis situations. NATO already has a rapid-response force model in place, however, after Russia’s aggression in Ukraine —...

Apple today announced a €1.7 billion plan to build and operate two data centers in Europe, each powered by 100 percent renewable energy. The facilities, located in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland, will power Apple’s online services including the iTunes Store, App Store, iMessage, Maps and Siri for customers across Europe. “We are grateful for Apple’s continued success in Europe and proud that our investment supports communities across the continent,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, in a statement. “This significant new investment represents Apple’s biggest project in Europe to date. We’re thrilled to be expanding our operations, creating...

One in five Germans believe that a revolution would be the only way to truly reform society, a study released by the Free University of Berlin on Monday shows. Anti-capitalism, anti-fascism and anti-racism were all are prominent positions according to the study entitled “Against state and capital—for the revolution”, which has revealed a public much further to the left than previously thought. In the report, 20% of the people surveyed agreed with the statement that “Living conditions won’t be improved by reforms—we need a revolution”. A similar percentage of people said they saw the rise of a new fascism in...

Whilst threatening Russia with more sanctions, US Secretary of State John Kerry has condemned the country’s behavior toward the Ukraine ceasefire. Separatist rebels, however, have reported a planned prisoner exchange. During his meeting with his British counterpart Philip Hammond in London on Saturday, Kerry said Russia’s conduct was “completely counter to what the international community” worked for in the Ukraine ceasefire. Over a week since the repeatedly violated ceasefire was agreed in the Belarusian capital, Minsk, Kerry said the US and its allies were “not going to play this game” with Russia and “be part of this kind of extraordinarily...

US citizens and other non-EU nationals who enter Europe will be asked to have their faces image-captured and fingerprints scanned upon arrival at a half-dozen major airports. The biometric dragnet is part of a pilot test of the EU’s so-called “smart borders” package. Passengers can refuse to give the data for now, but there are plans to eventually make it obligatory.A draft internal EU document dated Wednesday (18 February) and seen by this website says the “proof of concept” is set to start in March and will run until September this year. “Should traveler participation be lower than expected, there...

Eduard Hellvig, currently a conservative MEP who has been chosen by President Klaus Iohannis to be the next chief of the Romanian foreign intelligence service, has published an article in which he warns of the “threat for the EU” from the rapprochement of Hungary with Moscow. In an article published in his blog and republished by Hotnews, Hellvig, who is a politician from Romania’s German minority, writes that Romania and the EU face an unprecedented case—“the blatant prejudice against liberal democratic values by the regime of Victor Orbán”, the Hungarian Prime Minister. “Hungary tends to be a threat to European...

Can better urban planning help prevent terrorist attacks? The idea sounds fanciful, even disrespectful to victims of extremist violence. But officials in Paris, still reeling from last month’s deadly terrorist attacks on a satirical magazine and a kosher deli, are putting some hope in a plan to re-zone the city and annex the notorious inner suburbs, or banlieues, where the terror plot was born. In what would be perhaps the greatest redesign of Paris since Baron Haussmann laid out its famed boulevards in the mid-19th Century, the “Métropole du Grand Paris” would attempt to bring the poor, heavily immigrant neighborhoods...

Poverty levels in Germany have reached an all-time high, with 15.5 percent of the population—or 12.5 million people—affected. Single parents and unemployed people were the hardest hit, according to a report from a welfare association. Over 40 percent of single parents and almost 60 percent of the unemployed are poor, according to the Paritätische Gesamtverband, an umbrella organization for associations focusing on social services. Older people and retirees, around 15 percent of whom are considered poor, are the fastest growing demographic group in terms of poverty, according to the report released on Thursday. One of the report authors, Christian Woltering,...

To many on the outside, Germany looks like a big, rich country enjoying the benefits of being Europe's largest economy. Inside, Germans know that looks can be deceiving. As in any nation, parts of Germany suffer from poverty, and Germans have always assumed they knew which parts: the west is rich and the east is poor. But a new report reveals the truth isn't that simple. The wealth imbalance in Germany isn't just between east and west; there are also large regional differences between the country's north and south. And across the country there are pockets of poverty more crushing...

Yet of all of the secessionist movements from the Atlantic to the Urals, none imperils a vital interest of the United States. None is really our business. And none justifies a war with Russia. Indeed, what is it about this generation of Americans that makes us such compulsive meddlers in the affairs of nations we could not find on a map? Consider if you will our particular affliction: Putin paranoia.