Free Republic

Police, who held a line at the very gate of the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium on Thursday were pelted with potatoes by angry farmers worried a new free trade deal will see their livelihoods and industry destroyed. A government-authorized protest for 50 tractors in Brussels turned into a demonstration with “around 1,000” tractors present and over 7,000 farmers on Thursday. While the protest largely passed off without incident, there were clashes at the European Parliament building, where farmers threw potatoes and eggs and received tear gas and water cannon in return. […] The farmers are protesting the forthcoming EU-Mercosur...

I was there in an Ottawa courtroom when Tamara Lich, the leader of the trucker convoy, was sentenced to a year under house arrest. She's only allowed to leave her home for medical appointments and church, and a few hours a week to buy groceries. She's not allowed to go out for dinner or visit friends or even go for a walk. It's atrocious. But there is another exception: she can leave her home for work. That got me thinking. Tamara has worked with Rebel News before — speaking at our events across Canada, coming on our TV shows, and...

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) urged Nigerian President Bola Tinubu on Thursday to use the federal government to protect worshippers in the face of expected increased jihadist attacks during the Christmas season.For over a decade, Nigeria has experienced widespread Islamist violence targeting Christians, largely committed by organized and heavily armed terrorist organizations such as Boko Haram and the Fulani “herdsmen” terrorists in the Middle Belt region. Under Tinubu’s presidency, Nigeria has experienced a surge in mass abductions targeting Christian schools and churches, as well as sweeps of entire Christian villages, displacing tens of thousands of people. Experts have...

When tragedy strikes it is human to try to look for the good, and one thing that stood out among the horror with the Bondi massacre was the outstanding behaviour from the majority of men. ..... If what happened over the weekend made you more scared of the senseless violence men can be capable of, I don’t blame you. But I do think we should take solace in the fact the vast majority of men caught up in the horrors behaved selflessly and heroically. You don’t have to look far to see all the incredible acts from men during the...

SummaryThe discussion centers on Venezuela being described as a mafia-run, cartel-controlled state rather than a legitimate government, heavily involved in narco-trafficking with Marxist allies in Honduras as a transit point, importing massive quantities of drugs into the US and causing American deaths.Key points raised:Actions against Venezuela are framed as stopping drug trafficking, Chinese influence, and related threats, not regime change or foreign wars.Claims of substantial evidence that a Venezuela-affiliated election machine company interfered in US 2020 and 2024 elections, with references to connected machines, manipulable data, and cases like Tina Peters.Chinese Communist Party has a sophisticated spy base and missiles...

President Donald Trump’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is reportedly setting out an ambitious plan to strip citizenship from naturalized Americans who are found to have fraudulently secured the legal status. The denaturalization plan, detailed in The New York Times, will be spearheaded by USCIS Director Joe Edlow and focus on referring 100 to 200 denaturalization cases every month to the agency’s Office of Immigration Litigation. “If the cases are successful, it would represent a massive escalation of denaturalization in the modern era, experts said. By comparison, between 2017 and this year to date, there had been just...

India has emerged as the world's largest and most active market for large language model (LLM) adoption, according to an analysis by Bank of America (BofA) on Wednesday. The country now leads globally in the number of users for popular AI apps such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, both in terms of monthly active users (MAUs) and daily active users (DAUs). India has the second-largest online population in the world, with more than 700-750 million mobile internet users. Affordable data plans have made AI access easier, with users able to consume 20-30 GB of data a month at around $2....

It’s been three days since the jihad against innocent Jews at Sydney’s Bondi beach. A nation’s grief is swiftly turning to anger and Australia’s prime minister is floundering. As more is learned about the father-and-son killers who took 15 lives and wounded many more, questions are piling up. How did the father enter the country? How did security agencies lose track of the son, who not only imbibed his father’s Jew hate, but may have been further radicalised by reportedly studying with one of Sydney’s most notorious Islamist hate preachers? How did they manage to go to a militant area...

"Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban declared “dead” the proposals to seize the $247 billion in frozen Russian assets within the European Union and use them to finance a reparations loan for Ukraine. Orban, a right-wing nationalist who has warm relations with Russia, and is also one of U.S. President Donald Trump’s closest political allies in Europe, made the remark to reporters on Thursday morning as he entered a European Council meeting for crunch talks on the assets issue."

As the manhunt for the Brown University shooter entered its sixth day Thursday, sources say police in Providence, Rhode Island, recovered live rounds from the shooting scene.

Heavily armed Australian police swooped on a group of men heading to Bondi Beach on Thursday after intelligence suggested they could be planning a “violent act” days after 15 people were slaughtered at a Hanukkah event there. The suspects were nabbed in two cars with out-of-state license plates in Sydney’s south-west just days after two ISIS terrorists shot up the famed beach. Chaotic footage captured SWAT teams searching and cuffing five bloodied men after authorities rammed their vehicle in the broad-daylight sting. A weapon may have been uncovered from the car, sources told the Sydney Morning Herald. Police also swooped...

Heavily-armed tactical police have swooped on a group of men believed to have been on their way to Bondi Beach - revealing they were acting on information a “violent act” was possibly being planned. (Snip) It is unclear whether the group of men arrested posed any danger to the public, and unclear why they were headed for Bondi however in the current climate law enforcers are taking no chances. A witness said it was “frightening to see so many police with huge weapons in the area” especially after what had happened in Bondi. “This is not something you see every...

US strikes 26th Venezuelan drug boat US military forces on Wednesday executed a strike against another Venezuelan drug vessel in the Eastern Pacific. The strike under Joint Task Force Southern Spear killed four members of a Designated Terrorist Organization, US Southern Command said. This marks the 26th strike against Venezuelan drug boats and brings the total number of narcoterrorists killed in these operations to 99. WATCH: VIDEO AT LINK................

The US has approved a package of arms sales to Taiwan worth up to $11 billion — one of its biggest ever — a move that will likely draw a sharp response from Beijing. The approvals announced late Wednesday by the State Department cover a broad range of equipment, including missiles, drones and artillery systems aimed at strengthening the democracy’s defenses. The package includes a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, valued at up to $4.05 billion, as well as self-propelled howitzers worth about

Anthony Albanese has announced a significant expansion of Australia’s hate speech laws following the deadly terrorist attack on Sydney’s Jewish community at Bondi Beach on Sunday. Speaking after a meeting of the National Security Committee, the Australian prime minister outlined a suite of legislative and policy changes aimed at lowering the threshold for prosecuting hate speech, particularly targeting religious preachers and organisational leaders who incite violence or racial hatred. The reforms come amid mounting criticism that the government failed to act decisively as antisemitism surged in Australia after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, and Israel’s subsequent ground...

“A world-renowned MIT nuclear science professor who was murdered in his home may have been assassinated by an Iranian operative, Israeli officials said. Married father-of-three Nuno F.G. Loureiro, 47, was gunned down in the leafy Boston suburb of Brookline at 8.30pm on Monday by an unknown shooter who is still on the loose. Loureiro specialized in nuclear science, engineering and physics and he had previously spoken out in favor of Israel, a mortal enemy of Iran. Now, Israeli officials have said Iranian operatives targeted the leading nuclear fusion researcher, according to the Jerusalem Post.”

With most European leaders talking tougher about immigration amid a rise in far-right populism and Trump administration warnings that they could face “civilizational erasure” unless they tighten their borders, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stands apart. The Iberian nation has taken in millions of people from Latin America and Africa in recent years, and the leftist Sánchez regularly extols the financial and social benefits that immigrants who legally come to Spain bring to the eurozone’s fourth-largest economy. Spain’s choice, Sánchez often says, is between “being an open and prosperous country or a closed and poor one.” His words stand in...

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote a short article for the Human Rights Defender about the ‘right’ to own guns. In those days there wasn’t much to say. Even in the gun-crazy United States of America (USA), the courts had consistently ruled that the vaunted Second Amendment to the Constitution was no obstacle to regulation of firearms; its power was psychological and political, rather than legal. My article was prompted by the emergence of rights rhetoric from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA), part of the Australian pro-gun lobby, which had formed an alliance with the US National Rifle...

Conservative commentator Tucker Carlson made a startling claim that President Donald Trump may use his upcoming televised address to announce war with Venezuela. Carlson was speaking on the online show Judging Freedom. The right-winger said he was told by a member of Congress that lawmakers had been briefed ahead of Trump’s planned 9 pm address. “Members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war [with Venezuela] is coming, and it will be announced in [Trump’s] address to the administration tonight,” Carlson said, according to a transcript shared on social media. However, he was also not sure whether the MAGA chief...

WARSAW, Dec 16 (Reuters) - Polish security services have detained a 19-year-old student suspected of seeking to establish contacts with Islamic State and charged with preparing an attack at a Christmas market that could have caused mass casualties, authorities said on Tuesday. Mateusz W., a student at the Catholic University of Lublin, wanted to commit an attack using explosives and planned to join a terrorist organization, said Jacek Dobrzynski, a spokesperson for Poland's special services. "The man was very fascinated by Islam, sought to establish contacts with the Islamic State, and was preparing an attack in Poland, in one of...