Free Republic

German police descended on a Christmas market in Berlin after two bags of bullets were found under a nearby mosque last night. About 200 rounds of ammunition was found in an underground car park in West Berlin - but officers quickly ruled out any terror link. The discovery came with Germany still on high alert after a wave of terror attacks and almost a year after a jihadist killed 12 by crashing a lorry through a market in the city.

The EU foreign policy chief says Europe does “not see eye to eye” with the Trump administration on major issues such as trade, climate change and funding of U.N. agencies, but can “easily” work with the U.S. on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Federica Mogherini spoke Saturday during a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum. Mogherini warned that threatened U.S. cuts in funding U.N. agencies “would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe.” …

"I strongly condemn any attack on Jews anywhere in the world and on Israeli citizens," the EU foreign minister said...

The EU's diplomatic chief Monday bluntly rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that Europe would follow the US in recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital, saying there would be no change to its stance on the holy city. Netanyahu said the controversial announcement by US President Donald Trump -- which prompted diplomatic alarm and street protests across the Islamic world -- had "put facts squarely on the table". As he arrived for talks in Brussels, Netanyahu said he expected "all or most" European countries would follow the US -- but the 28-nation bloc's foreign policy head Federica Mogherini...

The number of Salafists in Germany has risen to its highest ever level, according to the country’s intelligence chief, sparking fears radical Islamist extremism is on the up. Hans-Georg Maassen said people adhering to the fundamentalist Islamic ideology had ‘risen to an all-time high’, with the German intelligence agency BfV claiming it is now at 10,800 – it was at 9,700 in December last year. He said recruitment to Salafism is now taking place in ark corners of the internet, which is hard to police. Maassen also said Islamists coming from the North Caucasus were especially dangerous as many of them had...

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is now disclosing the nature of his resignation, and why he left Lebanon to spend time in Saudi Arabia. It appears the Saudi and regional partners provided evidence that Iran and Hezbollah were planning an assassination targeting Hariri and his family.

Germans increasingly see Russia as a more reliable partner than the US, a new study released on Saturday has found. The poll of 1,004 people by research institute Infratest dimap showed that 28 percent of respondents felt Moscow was a reliable partner, compared to 25 percent for Washington. The result is the first time the public’s trust in the US has fallen below Russia in over a decade. An Infratest survey of public trust in Germany’s global partners in June found both countries tying at 21 percent. France and Britain fared far better in the German public’s eyes. More than...

Arab foreign ministers on Sunday demanded that the United States rescind President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, calling it a “grave” development that puts Washington on the same side as “occupation” and the violation of international law. In a resolution long on rhetoric but short on concrete actions, the ministers also called for the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution condemning Trump’s decision, but acknowledged that Washington would most likely veto it. If the U.S. vetoes the resolution, the Arabs would seek a similar resolution in the U.N. General Assembly, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al-Maliki...

Malta EU Africa Migration Summit According to reports in the Israeli press, several other countries will follow President Trump's lead and move their Israeli embassies to Jerusalem. Who is doing this and why speaks volumes about the moral condition of the world. Hungary's President Viktor Orban reportedly vetoed a European Community resolution condemning Trump's action, and Hungary is expected to move its embassy to Jerusalem. Orban has fought a public war of words with liberal mega-donor George Soros all year, and polite opinion claims that Orban is an anti-Semite. His political base includes plenty of anti-Semites, to be sure....

The European Union launched legal action Tuesday against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic over their refusal to take refugees. The case stems from a decision to relocate 160,000 migrants proportionally across the EU. Hungary and Poland have refused to take a single refugee under the plan while the Czech Republic let in 12.EU is now launching infringement procedures, arguing the three countries are violating their obligations as member states. “Regrettably, despite … repeated calls, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, in breach of their legal obligations stemming … and their commitments to Greece, Italy and other member states, have...

The European Union on Wednesday moved ahead with legal action against Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic for refusing to comply with a controversial E.U. scheme to redistribute refugees and migrants for resettlement across the bloc. Hungary’s conservative government has labeled it the “George Soros plan” after the Hungarian-American financier who last year pledged to invest $500 million in support of European migrant resettlement. The E.U.’s executive Commission announced it was moving to the next stage of its “infringement procedure” — the three eastern European countries have a month to respond to a formal request to comply and if their...

After much criticism of the scheme, which seeks to resettle an initial 160,000 migrants from Italy and Greece across EU member states, the Czechs have finally withdrawn citing concerns over security and the ‘’dysfunctionality’’ of what has been criticized as a shambolic program. Prague had accepted only 12 of the 1,600 migrants required by Brussels before leaving the program, which imposes quotas on all 28 member states under threat of sanction. The resettlement scheme was the EU’s initial response to the near Biblical wave of migrants which arrived in autumn 2015 following Angela Merkel’s decision to open Germany’s borders. In...

EU officials announced they have begun court action against Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic over their opposition to the bloc’s mandatory relocation scheme. The decision is likely to provoke a furious response from the leaders of the three states, which have all argued that the programme presents a security threat to their citizens. It risks once more plunging Brussels into a bitter and acrimonious battle with three of its newest member states, at a time when the bloc is trying to uphold its remarkable unity of Brexit. In September Hungary and Slovakia lost an appeal to the ECJ against...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday called for calm and told Muslims protesting US President Donald Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem to act in a democratic and lawful fashion. However, Erdogan also called Israel an "occupying state that usurped Palestinians' lands since 1967 with no regard to law or morality," and claimed Jerusalem was ...

While British Prime Minister Theresa May celebrated reaching a deal with the EU over Brexit, an anti-Brexit pressure group said it had betrayed Brits living in Germany and the EU. […] The initial deal brought smiles to the face of May, who was probably in danger of losing her job if talks had broken down again, but left many British citizens living in Germany and other EU countries less than happy. While the deal guarantees their rights to remain and work in Germany, the agreement does not guarantee them the right to continue moving freely around Europe, as is the...

Russia’s unexpected announcement recognizing Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem, a dramatic decision that places Vladimir Putin against Donald Trump in a totally new big-power rivalry – the race to Jerusalem. Many American and Israeli Jews have waited with mounting impatience for Trump to keep his campaign promise to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Against an atmosphere of US equivocation, Putin suddenly announced, without preamble or restricting conditions, the recognition of Israel’s capital, to take effect immediately.

In one audio recording, Erdogan was heard ordering his son to get rid of all the cash he kept at home; and his son, after trying for several hours, tells him there are still millions left. Erdogan denied the authenticity of the evidence and claimed this was a coup d'état against his elected administration. He then purged all prosecutors and police officers investigating the charges. Zarrab's testimony as a witness, as well as documents displayed at trial "would show that this conspiracy to launder money for Iran was not a rogue operation. It would show the Turkish government at...

Traditional US allies are among a growing chorus condemning President Trump's decision to recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Saudi Arabia called it "unjustified and irresponsible", while France and the UK said they did not support the decision. But Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu hailed it as "historic" and said he was sure more countries would follow suit. President Trump's move reversed decades of US policy on one of the thorniest issues between Israel and Palestinians. Hundreds of Israeli troops have been deployed to the West Bank amid a day of protests and strikes by Palestinians.

An Iranian-backed militia in Iraq threatened on Thursday to attack US forces in the country over US President Donald Trump recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. "The decision by Trump on Al-Quds [Jerusalem] makes it legitimate to strike the American forces in Iraq," Al-Nojaba militia chief Akram al-Kaabi said in a statement. The group, established in 2013 and supported by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, numbers around 1,500 fighters and is part of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilization) auxiliary force that has fought alongside the army against ISIS. Following Trump’s announcement, Iran strongly condemned the decision, saying it threatened a...

he leader of Germany's main socialist party has called for a United States of Europe by 2025. Martin Schulz said any countries who disagree should follow Britain's example and leave the bloc. He made the plea in a speech to 600 of his Social Democrats at a congress to decide whether to start coalition talks with Angela Merkel's party.