Free Republic

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 initially focused on Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who U.S. prosecutors have said was the mastermind behind the Iran sanctions evasion scheme, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the "No. 1" target in a group that also included...

The Hungarian government has received millions of notarised responses to its National Consultation on the ‘Soros Plan’ for mass migration, with the public rejecting it overwhelmingly. The consultation, which has received over 2.1 million notarised responses by post alone, was issued in order to gauge public support for the government’s determined opposition to the migrant crisis plan written by billionaire financier and open borders activist George Soros, who recently pumped $18 billion into what the Hungarian premier calls “bogus civil society organisations” to advance his goals. “Based on the results so far, practically every respondent said no to the fact...

From DNA samples to iris scans, Chinese authorities are using free physical exams to gather and store biological data from millions of people who live in the country's far west region of Xinjiang, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday, citing an official document that suggests the government's surveillance program in the region is even wider than previously believed. Xinjiang, the historical home of the Uighur ethnic group, has become a testing ground for heavy-handed, high-tech surveillance measures by the government over the past year. China says the measures are necessary to combat extremist violence, but critics say they violate the...

The Afghan refugee, who is now on trial for the rape and murder of the medical student Maria Ladenburger in October 2016, is older than previously thought. Hussein Khavari entered Germany in November 2015 without identity papers. He told authorities that he was born in 1999 in Afghanistan and that his father was killed during the war. But it now appears that his father is still alive. According to German media his father said his son was born in 1984 and that he is 33-years-old. The Local Germany says about it: “Prosecutors were able to track down Hussein K.’s father...

PARIS: All French children under the age of 16 will have to seek parental approval to open an account on Facebook or any other social network under draft legislation presented on Wednesday (Dec 13). The requirement is part of a French bill that seeks to adapt data privacy regulations and improve access to the information internet companies gather, store and in many cases sell to other firms about people's online activity

A short three hours after US President Donald Trump phoned Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas to inform him of his intention to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a number of Palestinian photojournalists received a phone call from Bethlehem. The callers were Palestinian "activists," who invited the photographers to come to the city to document an "important event." When the photographers arrived, they discovered that the "important event" was a handful of Palestinian "activists" who wanted to burn posters of Trump in front of the cameras. The "activists" waited patiently as the photojournalists and cameramen set...

When Sebastian Gorka went to work on January 21, 2017, things were looking good. He scored a great parking spot for his Mustang, stepped out into Washington, D.C.’s crisp morning air, straightened his tie, and relished the opportunity he’d been given as he strode toward the White House. His mandate came from the President of the United States, Donald Trump, and he held it as an unequivocal honor — to make America great again. Gorka, the Trump administration’s deputy advisor on national security issues, knew his mission wouldn’t be a cakewalk. The White House and Capitol Hill were home to...

The increasingly militarized conflict between Western military alliance NATO and Russia has compelled Finland to boost its own defenses and acquire new weapons, according to the commander of the country’s armed forces. Finnish Defense Chief General Jarmo Lindberg said Wednesday that the increased military activity in the region prompted Helsinki to rethink prior defense cuts and commit to expanding its forces, including procuring new weapons and equipment. Finland has been one of the few Western European countries that hasn’t sought membership in NATO, but its troubled relationship with neighboring Russia worsened after Moscow’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean Peninsula from...

A Russian ambulance spotted in central Stockholm sparked far-fetched fears on Twitter that the city might be undergoing an invasion. The ambulance, a good 865 kilometers from the Russian border, was first noticed by local Måns Jonasson when it stopped to help a sick man in Stockholm's Södermalm district. To the great surprise of passers-by, the ambulance had Russian plates and inscriptions, and its Russian-speaking personnel wore uniforms with Russian script. Swedes have a perennial fear of "Russian invasion," and the unexpected guest – although benevolent – played into their anxiety. While some who responded to Jonasson's tweet guessed a...

London (Platts)--12 Dec 2017 554 am EST/1054 GMT An explosion Tuesday at the major European gas hub at Baumgarten in Austria has forced operator OMV to close the facility, with Austrian and Italian gas prices surging in early trading as a result of the blast. Italian gas price almost doubles to Eur45/MWh on blast Baumgarten station 'out of service': Gas Connect Austria Russian gas supplies to Italy nominated at 108 mil cu m Tuesday Russia's Gazprom said it was having to re-route gas supplies to parts of Europe following the explosion. "[Gazprom] is working on the redistribution of gas flows...

A top Republican senator is expanding an investigation into the Uranium One deal, demanding documents from the Energy Department and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) on the Uranium One deal. Wyoming GOP Sen. John Barrasso wants to know whether or not former President Barack Obama’s administration intentionally misled him about Uranium One being able to export its product out of the U.S. after it was acquired by Russia.

U.S. immigration and customs agents have increased arrests of undocumented Irish people by 30 percent in 2017. That’s according to statistics released by ICE in December. This comes after Donald Trump signed an executive order just days after his inauguration ordering an ICE crackdown on illegal immigration. Those figures indicate that 34 Irish citizens have been deported from America this year as compared with 26 in 2016. The Irish Times reports that the majority of Irish who have overstayed their visas were on vacation waivers. The executive director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston, Ronnie Millar, told the...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered on Tuesday to begin direct talks with North Korea without pre-conditions, backing away from U.S. demands that Pyongyang must first accept that any negotiations would have to be about giving up its nuclear arsenal. *snip* While reiterating Washington’s long-standing position that it cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, Tillerson said the United States was “ready to talk any time they’re ready to talk”, but that there would first have to be a “period of quiet” without nuclear and missile tests...

Three days after declaring victory over the Islamic State group, Iraq’s prime minister warns that the group’s extremists might “erupt again somewhere else” without international cooperation in combatting the militants. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi told reporters Tuesday that “we have managed to break them” in Iraq, but added that it’s a worry for everyone that IS has “this unfortunate ability to recruit young people very quickly.” He said there must be an effort to “remove their grassroots in the region.” …

Israeli army has denied carrying out a strike in Gaza on Tuesday that killed two members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Beit Lahia in the northern part of the Hamas-run enclave. According to Palestinian Maan News agency, sources close to Islamic Jihad said that the two men — 25 year old Hussein Ghazi Hussein Nasrallah and 29 year old Mustafa Sultan — were part of the group’s armed wing Saraya al-Quds and had been working for its northern brigade’s engineering unit. The group later posted a statement on its website saying that the two men were on a “jihadist...

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman said that President Trump is "pretty much the same" as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Rodman, who has met with Kim on multiple occasions and appeared on Trump"s "Celebrity Apprentice" show, Rodman told Agence France-Presse while in China that the two leaders exhibit similarities in how "they love control." The former athlete also said that the two are engaging in harmless "entertainment" when threatening nuclear warfare and "ain't nobody got no finger on the button."

New York’s undocumented came out of the shadows under Obama. Now, with Trump, they fear giving away personal details could have been a big mistake. As President Donald Trump fights to deliver on his pledge to rapidly deport 2 to 3 million people living in the country without visas, there’s a pile of almost a million documents with details of many of New York City’s undocumented people — information they themselves willingly handed over that today risk leading federal immigration forces right to their front doors. More than a million of the country's estimated 11.1 million undocumented immigrants live in...

North Korea appears to be pressing ahead with its nuclear programme. Satellite images recently detected hectic activity at the North Korean nuclear test site, Punggye-ri. Experts say that after North Korea's last nuclear test, minor tremors were detected near Mt Mantap, located close to the nuclear site. However, Pyongyang is now engaged in additional tunnel work at the site. According to experts at 38North, a US-based think tank, the fresh activities were detected at the West Portal of the site – indicating that the site may be undergoing an expansion. Meanwhile, the North Portal, where the previous five tests were...

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has issued a report on "National Security, the Assault on Science, and Academic Freedom" that might leave readers who have studied such matters scratching their heads. "The Trump administration's alarming hostility to science has exacerbated already troubling threats to academic freedom in the physical and natural sciences in two different areas," the AAUP states. "In the area of international scientific exchange, Chinese or Chinese American scientists have been targeted and charged with espionage." "The second area, the field of climate science, has been subjected to vicious attempts to discredit its validity, which have...

A Houston 18-year-old has been arrested and charged with illegally distributing explosive-making information and attempting to support the Islamic State organization. The U.S. Justice Department said Monday that Kaan Sercan Damlarkaya, a U.S. citizen, was arrested on Dec. 8 following an undercover FBI operation. A statement says Damlarkaya said he intended to travel overseas and fight for IS and said he tried to get to Syria twice. He told agents that he would commit a U.S. attack if efforts to travel overseas failed. It also says Damlarkaya provided to alleged IS supporters a formula for explosive Triacetone Triperoxide and instructions...