Free Republic

Outside the island's main police station, about 50 migrants from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran threw stones and exchanged blows as tempers boiled over in the intense mid-summer heat. Riot police stood by without intervening. The migrants have little chance of getting aboard the ship, the Eleftherios Venizelos, as priority is being given to Syrians, who are treated as refugees as they are fleeing their country's civil war and have greater rights under international law than economic migrants. All have crossed the narrow stretch of water from Turkey in small boats and dinghies as they try to find a better life...

Russia, a veto-wielding permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has pledged to block any future attempts by the UN to hit Iran with fresh sanctions. "When Resolution 1929, the last series of sanctions resolutions, was adopted… we made it clear behind closed doors to our US and EU colleagues that Russia will not let another sanctions resolution against Iran be passed," Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters on Friday. Resolution 1929 was approved by the Security Council in June 2010, banning the supply of conventional weapons to Iran. It resulted in the suspension of Russia’s contract...

Martin Matishak, The Fiscal Times August 14, 2015 The Air Force didn’t help its long-standing argument that the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack jet should be retired when the service announced this week it would deploy more of the aircraft to Europe this fall. The 23rd Wing at Moody Air Force Base in Georgia announced it will send 12 attack planes and crews to Central and Eastern European to bolster NATO’s “Operation Atlantic Resolve,” an ongoing show of military might meant to deter Russian aggression in the region. In March, the Air Force deployed a dozen A-10s from Davis-Monthan Air Force...

Discussion on the Greek bailout and implications for the EEC

The U.S. came within seconds of launching a nuclear strike on Russia ,unleashing WW3 during the coldest period of the Cold War, according to secret documents revealed by a historian. Washington and Russia came extremely close to a massive nuclear war because of a faulty 46-cent component that caused a computer glitch, according to the documents. The secret documents were revealed and detailed in a book by American author Eric Schlosser titled Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. The documents include over 1,000 accidents with nuclear weapons that occurred due to the negligence...

It does not bode well that an Obama administration that assures us that the nuclear deal with Iran will not be violated by the mullahs is clearly looking the other way as Iran’s ally Russia blatantly violates the 1987 Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the former Soviet Union. The Obama White House is sitting on a Pentagon risk assessment report completed last month that states “that the breach involved a new missile that violates the limits set by the treaty. The treaty bans holding, producing, or flight-testing ground-launched ballistic or cruise missiles with ranges of between 310 miles...

Once thought dead and buried on the battlefields of Iraq, a muscular and militaristic "neoconservative" approach to US foreign policy is making a comeback. For most of the last decade, the "neocons" -- personified by former vice president Dick Cheney and ex-Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld -- have been out of office and out of fashion. But the 2016 presidential race has seen Republican candidates embrace ideas and advisors once ostracized for the catastrophes and hubris of George W. Bush's "preemptive war" in Iraq. During last week's Republican presidential debates, 17 candidates tripped over themselves to declare President Barack Obama weak...

A divided Hellenic parliament has approved a third bailout for the country in five years, amid protests in Athens. The tense vote has lead to divisions within the ruling Syriza party, with snap elections on the horizon. Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras was handed a pyrrhic victory early Friday after opposition legislators approved a 85-billion-euro ($94.8 billion) bailout to keep the country financially afloat. A clear majority of 222 MPs approved the 400-page text containing the bailout conditions - there were over 64 who voted against and 11 abstentions. However, only 118 of the 162 members of Tsipras' governing coalition...

Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State (IS) jihadists in northern Iraq have reported being attacked with chemical weapons, the German defense ministry said Thursday. “We have indications that there was an attack with chemical weapons” against the Peshmerga fighters that left many suffering from “respiratory irritation,” a ministry spokesman told AFP. […] IS has previously been accused of using chlorine against Kurdish forces in Iraq. In March, the autonomous Kurdish government in northern Iraq said it had evidence that the jihadist group used chlorine in a car bomb attack on January 23. …

Invasion of Europe news…. Dubi, North Bohemia, Aug 8 (ČTK) — Several hundred people from the Czech Republic and Germany protested against the arrival of refugees at the former customs building on the Czech-German border crossing Cinovec-Zinnwald today, Mayor Petr Pipal has told journalists. ... The Saxon town of Altenberg wants to accommodate the refugees in the former customs building. The capacity of the facility will be 110 places, while some 80 refugees from Syria, Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan are to be placed there. ... We are told the refugees will be allowed to leave the center for “walks” during...

UPDATE: The US Air Force confirmed that one of its F-16 fighter planes crashed in the forest near Engelmannsreuth, northern Bavaria on Tuesday morning. The pilot was able to escape serious harm using the aircraft's ejector seat.A statement from the 52nd Fighter Wing at Spangdahlem air base in western Germany said that the plane, part of the 480th Fighter Squadron, crashed at 9.38 am and that the pilot was able to eject safely. He also managed to jettison the plane's external fuel tanks safely over an unpopulated area. Bavarian police told AFP that a passerby found the slightly injured pilot...

Germany’s second-largest police union on Tuesday called for the reintroduction of internal European border controls and demanded more personnel to deal with a record flood of refugees. “From a policing point of view, a return to border controls would be the best of all measures,” said Rainer Wendt, chairman of the German Police Union (DpolG), in a newspaper interview. The union, which wants an extra 1,000 personnel, was later Tuesday to show Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière the “catastrophic conditions” for overworked police near the German-Austrian border. …

A group of scholars has concocted a plan to implement the U. S.-Iran Nuclear Agreement that looks even sketchier than the pact itself. barack obama iran deal au speech wave The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) has devised “Six Achievable Steps for Implementing An Effective Verification Regime for a Nuclear Agreement With Iran.” They are: * “Ensure that the Joint Commission Works Effectively Among the P5+1 and Iran to Facilitate Compliance and Communication.” P5 + 1 stands for the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany. The five permanent members are China, France, Russian Federation, the United...

Germany is again agitating for other European countries to take what they believe to be their ‘fair’ share of refugees coming to the continent with a stark warning that failing to do so could see the collapse of the EU.Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel made the remarks on Monday, reiterating the frequently made claim that some nations take a heavier than necessary burden, and others have an unarguable responsibility to get involved. Conveniently ignoring the fact that right-wing nation Hungary takes the highest number of migrants per capita in Europe, Gabriel said: “Germany, Sweden, and Austria take on most of the...

Many people know that driving in Germany can be quite different from the U.S.: There is no general speed limit on most motorways, for example. Perhaps more astonishing, however, is another distinctive feature: Many German parking lots are equipped with special spaces for women. In some regions of Germany, law forces parking lot owners to designate at least 30 percent of their space specifically for women. Those parking lots are bigger than usual, which is supposed to make it easier for women to maneuver their cars. Some Germans like the idea, but others call it a sexist way of implying...

In 1981, Jimmy Carter said the world could never know West Germany’s role in the negotiations for the release of 52 hostages from the US Embassy in Tehran. New research sheds light on the important part the country played in ending the crisis. […] The details of the German contribution, however, remained unclear. Now historian Frank Bösch, the director of the Center for Contemporary History in Potsdam and Spiegel have conducted research in German archives and spoken with period witnesses. This has revealed that the West German government at the time had a “smooth intermediary role,” as Bösch puts it....

Brussels (AFP) - Greece and its creditors were involved in "intense talks" over the weekend to agree on a new bailout before the debt-ridden country must repay 3.4 billion euros ($3.7 billion) to the European Central Bank on August 20. European officials said sticking points still remain despite the progress being made, with a "generally positive reception... towards Greek readiness to vote on reforms this week. "It is ambitious but feasible to come to an agreement in the coming days, preferably by 20 August," an EU diplomat said Saturday.

It's quiet on the beach. Vacationers are still sleeping in their hotels, and the only sound to be heard is of a few dogs barking. Dawn is breaking over Kos. Rasib Ali drags his body out of the water with the last of his strength. His arms and legs are shaking, his lips are blue and his wet jeans and shirt cling to his body. The Greek island of Kos is only a few nautical miles from the Turkish coast. Ali, an 18-year-old migrant from Pakistan, left Turkey in a rubber boat the night before. He traveled alone, unable to...

Greece is on track to complete a draft deal with international creditors on a third bailout by next Tuesday with a possible first disbursement by Aug. 20, a source familiar with a conference call of senior EU finance officials on Friday said. Talks are proceeding smoothly and may be completed over the weekend, the source said. If a draft memorandum of understanding and an updated debt sustainability analysis are ready as planned on Tuesday, the Greek government and parliament would be expected to approve them by Thursday. Euro zone finance ministers could then meet or hold a teleconference on Friday...

In recent months, Germany’s government and intelligence agencies have gone after journalists and parliamentarians in an effort to keep classified information secret. Now, their efforts have resulted in a bona fide scandal for Berlin. […] In recent days, the chancellor, Justice Minister Heiko Maas and Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière have sanctimoniously thrown their support behind freedom of the press. But reality often looks different. In reality, senior government officials and intelligence agency heads in Germany have long been pursuing a policy of intimidating and deterring journalists and their sources. Leaks and whistleblowers are being hunted down and criminalized. Treason,...