Free Republic

It’s been formally acknowledged that U.S. NATO ‘ally’ Turkey is providing safe haven to leaders of Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) so designated by the U.S. State Department. By its very definition, an FTO should be considered declared enemy of the U.S. Despite this, Turkey doesn’t appear to be paying any price. Another player in all this is the small nation of Qatar. It is desperately trying to play both sides of a political fence as leaders of Hamas – to include the terrorist organization’s political leader Khaled Meshaal – has been forcibly relocated to Turkey. The reason these...

An Egyptian appeals court on Monday convicted a doctor of manslaughter and performing female genital mutilation that led to the death of a 13-year-old girl, sentencing him to two years and three months in prison in the country’s first case that came to trial over the widespread practice .... It is practiced in 29 countries, mostly in East and West Africa, but also in Iraq and Yemen. Rights groups see it as a way to control female sexuality that causes physical and psychological damage.

The French authorities killed three murderous savages yesterday. That was the only good news on a day in which a third hostage siege began in Montpellier. The bad news started at the top, with President Hollande's statement after the Charlie Hebdo slaughter and the Kosher grocery siege: Those who committed these acts have nothing to do with the Muslim religion. Yeah, right. I would use my standard line on these occasions - "Allahu Akbar" is Arabic for "Nothing to see here" - but it's not quite as funny when the streets are full of cowards, phonies and opportunists waving candles...

Germany has decided to stop arms exports to Saudi Arabia because of “instability in the region,” German daily Bild reported on Sunday. Weapons orders from Saudi Arabia have either been “rejected, pure and simple,” or deferred for further consideration, the newspaper said, adding that the information has not been officially confirmed. The decision was taken on Wednesday by the national security council, a government body that includes Chancellor Angela Merkel, Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel and seven other ministers, it said. …

The vote totals are still being finalized but the latest show the SYRIZA Party at 150 of the 300 seats in the Greek parliament with 36.3 percent of the vote. This is one vote short of an overall majority but multiple media sources including "The Wall Street Journal" are reporting that the conservative Independent Greeks, who broke away from the New Democracy (Republican type) Party in 2011 and are firmly against the EU austerity program will join up to stablilize the government. The Independent Greeks (ANEL) won 4.7 percent of the popular vote and 13 seats. The SYRIZA-ANEL alliance would...

Exit polls suggest a historic victory for the anti-austerity Syriza party in Greece's closely fought general election. One poll suggested Syriza took 35.5% of the votes, and the other suggested it took 39.5%, well ahead of ruling New Democracy party on 23%-27%. It is unclear whether Syriza has enough votes to govern the country alone. Syriza's Alexis Tsipras has pledged to renegotiate Greece's debt arrangement with international creditors....

LEIPZIG, Germany – Wednesday night saw a flare of violence and an accompanying police operation on a scale without precedent in recent German history. A group opposing militant Islam in Europe has called a demonstration, the city is deafened by political slogans played over loudspeakers, property is vandalised, and explosives are thrown at police in colossal running battles that involve thousands of people. If you got your news from the mainstream media, what is increasingly known in Germany as the ‘liar press’ (Luegenpresse), the story might very well end there. Then again, the report might also throw in salacious details...

About 3.1 million wage and salary earners in Germany had an income below the poverty threshold, according to Saturday’s edition of the Saarbrücker Zeitung newspaper. The paper cited an overview from Germany’s Federal Statistical Office showing the most recent available data, which covered the year 2013. It also showed the numbers of workers struggling to make ends meet jumped from about 2.5 million in 2008—an increase of 25 percent in five years. Data based on household surveys showed that those living on low wages were cutting back on food and heating, among other things, to save money. According to a...

Germany would be prepared to negotiate a free-trade agreement between the European Union and Russia as a way out of the deadlocked Ukraine conflict, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday. Merkel told the World Economic Forum in Davos that Germany was “ready” to open talks about “possibilities for cooperating in a collective trade area”, the Süddeutsche Zeitung reported. But she said that a precondition for the plan, suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin several years ago but ignored by European leaders, would be a comprehensive peace agreement in Ukraine. …

The European Central Bank will plough €1.1 trillion into the eurozone economy in a last-ditch attempt to breathe life into the European economy. At its monthly governing council on Thursday (January 22), the bank’s governing council agreed to start buying up to €60 billion of government bonds from March in an unprecedented quantitative easing program. The program is open-ended, and will run until September 2016 at the earliest. Speaking at a press conference following the governing council meeting, ECB president Mario Draghi said that the bond-buying program would remain in place “until we see a sustained adjustment in the path...

Members of the National Right to Work Foundation believe two German labor groups have failed to completely disclose their full level of involvement in the United Auto Workers’ attempts to set up shop in Chattanooga. As previously reported, the UAW wants to formally establish itself at Chattanooga’s Volkswagen plant. The UAW’s attempts have so far been unsuccessful. VW workers, by a tally of 712-626, for instance, voted in February not to join the UAW. Members of the NRTW represent an unspecified number of VW workers who oppose the union. They say that VW’s Global Works Council and IG Metall, a...

Landlord took former tenant to court for refusing to pay for damage to the marble floor of the bathroom he said was caused by stray drops from the tenant’s habit of relieving. . . . It might seem standard practice for most men to take aim from a standing position, but some sections of German society have a bizarre obsession with obliging men to answer nature’s call while seated. It is not uncommon to find home-made signs in German bathrooms commanding men to adopt a seated position.

European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi announced the launch of an open-ended, expanded monthly 60 billion euro ($70 billion) private and public bond-buying program on Thursday. The long-anticipated introduction of euro zone government bond purchases will bring the ECB's buying program into line with the U.S. Federal Reserve's quantitative easing (QE). The program will be open-ended, lasting until at least 2016, Draghi told reporters at his regular media conference on Thursday, and will start in March this year. The hope is that it will boost the region's painfully low inflation rate, which came in at an annual minus 0.2...

The vast majority of Muslims in Germany condemn the attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. But they are concerned that a new wave of Islamophobia may wash over the country anyway. […] Germany has experienced a fundamental shift, from a republic that sought to keep immigrants at arm’s length to one that is now the second-most attractive immigrant country after the United States. But societal cohesion is currently being tested. The anti-immigration, Islamophobic protests in Dresden organized by PEGIDA have shown that there is still a significant amount of angst about foreigners in Germany and the Paris attacks have triggered...

The Palestinian Islamist movement in the Gaza Strip, Hamas, has intensified its efforts to achieve the destruction of Israel. Hamas has obviously interpreted these two decisions -- by the EU court (to remove Hamas from the list of terror organizations) and the International Criminal Court -- as a green light to proceed with its plans to eliminate Israel. The main goal of Hamas's "Liberation Army" is, of course, to prepare for war against Israel, according to Hamas spokesman, Mushir al-Masri. "The main purpose of these training camps is to prepare an army for the liberation of Palestine and its holy...

The head of German "anti-Islamisation" movement Pegida, Lutz Bachmann, has resigned after a photo of him apparently posing as Hitler emerged.Prosecutors opened an investigation after the photo was published on the front pages of German newspapers. A Pegida spokeswoman sought to play down the Facebook photo as a "joke".

Organizers say as many as 60,000 people could attend an anti-Islamization rally in the eastern German city of Leipzig in what could be one of the biggest protests there since pro-Democracy marches there a quarter-century ago. ... The protests - and counterprotests - in Dresden were canceled following threats. The protests in Leipzig are being organized by LEGIDA, an organization that is allied with PEGIDA, short for Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, which has marched in German cities with mixed success.

When witnesses in the same building as Charlie Hebdo saw masked men with heavy weaponry enter the building they called police, like anyone in their position would do. But the three unarmed officers on bikes who showed up proved to be most unhelpful in the situation. According to the witness, the officers had to retreat after seeing the men were heavily armed. That wasn’t the only instance during the three-day terror spree where police found themselves utterly unprepared to take on the jihadists. The 27-year-old policewoman who was gunned down just south of Paris while attending a traffic accident was...

Germany’s top human rights official has urged Israel to cooperate with the International Criminal Court probe into possible war crimes in the Palestinian territories. After the investigation was announced last week, Israel’s government immediately said it would not work with The Hague-based court and called for its funding to be cut. The government’s human rights commissioner, Christoph Strässer, said in an interview published Tuesday that Israel’s reaction was counterproductive. …

The German central bank, or Bundesbank, said Monday that it stepped up the repatriation of its gold reserves from overseas storage last year. “The Bundesbank successfully continued and further stepped up its transfers of gold,” the central bank said in a statement. “In 2014, 120 tonnes of gold were transferred to Frankfurt from storage locations abroad: 35 tonnes from Paris and 85 tonnes from New York.” Germany’s gold reserves are the second-biggest in the world after those of the United States and totaled 3,384.2 tonnes this month, according to the latest data compiled by the World Gold Council. …

One was a young policewoman, unarmed on the outskirts of Paris and felled by an assault rifle. Her partner, also without weapons, could do nothing to stop the gunman. Another was a first responder with a side arm, rushing to the Charlie Hebdo offices where a pair of masked men with high-powered weapons had opened fire on an editorial meeting. Among their primary targets: the armed police bodyguard inside the room. With the deaths of the three French officers during three days of terror in the Paris region and the suggestion of a plot in Belgium to kill police, European...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Monday called for an anti-terror alliance with Arab countries to boost cooperation and information-sharing in the wake of deadly attacks and arrests across Europe. EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said Monday that "we need an alliance. We need to strengthen our way of cooperating together."...

BRUSSELS -- EU High Representative Federica Mogherini met here Monday Nabil Al-Araby, Secretary General of the Arab League and discussed how to increase counter-terrorism cooperation. Speaking to reporters before the meeting, she underlined that terrorism "is not an issue between the West and Islam, terrorist attacks are targeting most of all Muslims in the world so we need an alliance and a dialogue to face the issue together." "We also need to take full responsibility for what we do and say, I think respect is one of the core values of the EU, drawing the line between freedom and respect...

As parliaments in more and more European nations vote to recognize “Palestine,” European politicians insist they are doing so to promote the objective of an independent Palestinian state living in peace beside a secure Israel. But both the declared aims of Palestinian leaders and the pattern of European policy vis-a-vis Israel and the Palestinians give the lie to European averments of benign intent. Neither party of the divided Palestinian leadership has, to say the least, demonstrated an interest in peace with Israel. Hamas, now controlling Gaza and enjoying extensive popularity in the West Bank, openly trumpets its objective not only...

The German parliament’s scientific research service says the government’s legal argument to justify a training mission for Kurds in Iraq has “no constitutional basis,” according to a survey seen by both the news agency DPA and Der Spiegel magazine. Berlin is planning to send up to 100 soldiers to the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to help train Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting “Islamic State” (IS) terrorists. The cabinet approved the plans last December. As the mission is not part of a formal NATO or United Nations operation, it is not clear whether it is legal. The parliamentary survey says the...

There had been calls for would-be "assassins to mingle among the protesters ... and to murder an individual member of the organising team of the Pegida demonstrations", police said in a notice on the 24-hour ban. This was consistent with "an Arabic-language Tweet that called the Pegida demonstrations an enemy of Islam", it said. Top-circulation daily Bild said online that the threat targeted Pegida's most prominent leader Lutz Bachmann. The Pegida marches – which have voiced anger against Islam and "criminal asylum seekers" and vented a host of other grievances – began in Dresden in October with several hundred supporters...

Germany's anti-Islamic PEGIDA movement said it has cancelled a planned march on Monday, citing a death threat against organisers from the Islamic State jihadist group. "Cancelled! Dear friends, unfortunately we must cancel our 13th meeting due to security concerns," the group "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" said on its Facebook page on Sunday. "What in police jargon is called an 'abstract threat' has changed to a 'concrete death threat' against a member of the organising team. IS terrorists have ordered his assassination." "We take these leads very seriously," Spiegel quoted an unnamed high-ranking security official as saying....

On Thursday, January 15, the European Parliament adopted a resolution on Ukraine. The document has been very tough and uncompromising with regard to Russia, even with the traditional support of Ukraine by the European Parliament. It refers to the European Parliament the EU Council with a proposal to not only maintain but also to strengthen the sanctions, and the member states - to provide Ukraine with lethal weapons. The document also contains a number of other very important point. Although this decision is not legally binding, it will be a significant element of pressure on other governments of the European...

Europe’s energy union needs to be bolstered by EU laws binding on each nation, Germany said in a policy paper seen by Reuters that sets it at odds with Britain. […] After last October’s outline agreement on 2030 climate goals on carbon emissions, increased use of renewable energy and improved energy efficiency, Germany urged the Commission to draw up a proposal on “governance”. Governance refers to legal implementation plans for targets on renewable energy and energy savings. […] That position is diametrically opposed to the stance of Britain, which has called in general for a “light-touch and non-legislative” approach. …

Foreign intelligence agencies have intercepted discussions by Islamist militants about possible attacks on weekly marches organized by Germany's new anti-Islamic movement, a news weekly reported Friday, without citing its sources. Der Spiegel magazine said that foreign intelligence services had picked up the content of communications by some "known international jihadists", without giving specific details. The intelligence, which was passed to German authorities, indicated they had discussed possible attacks on the rallies organised by the so-called group, "Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident" (PEGIDA), the magazine said in a pre-released story to appear in this weekend's edition. "We take...

Dozens of terror suspects were arrested in Belgium, France, and Germany early Friday, a day after Belgian authorities said that they halted a plot to attack police officers by mere hours. Eric Van der Sypt, a Belgian federal magistrate, told a news conference Friday in Brussels that 13 people had been detained in Belgium in connection with the plot, with another two arrested in neighboring France. He added that a dozen searches had led to the discovery of four military-style weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles. On Thursday, Belgian police had moved against a suspected terrorist hideout in the eastern town...

Hollande, Merkel Speak Up for Europe’s Muslims Charlie Hebdo Attacks in Paris Have Fueled Debate Over Radical Islam By WILLIAM HOROBIN in Paris and ANDREA THOMAS in Berlin French and German leaders sought Thursday to reassure Muslims about their place in European society, cementing calls for unity after a series of attacks last week in France by Islamic extremists. Speaking at the Institute of the Arab World in Paris, President François Hollande said that Islam is compatible with democracy and Muslims are the main victims of Islamist militants. “Muslims are the first victims of fanaticism,...

Three Palestinian men admitted on Wednesday that they carried out an arson attack on a synagogue in North Rhine-Westphalia in June 2014. One 24-year-old man told a court in Wuppertal that the group had carried out the attack in despair at violence in their homeland between the Israeli armed forces and Palestinians. But while they wanted to “send a signal”, he say they did not want to set fire to the place of worship or hurt anyone. …

Germany has balanced the federal budget for the first time in more than 40 years, helped by strong tax revenues and rock-bottom interest rates, but the extra leeway is unlikely to translate into spending that could boost weak eurozone growth. Berlin had been aiming to achieve a schwarze Null – a balanced budget or one in the black – this year but the finance ministry announced on Tuesday it had got there in 2014, a year ahead of schedule. It is the first time since 1969 that Germany has achieved the feat and is a domestic and European political fillip...

The Supreme Court ruled today on the dangers of some so-called “legal highs”, setting new sentencing thresholds for possession of the drugs. Judges had to rule on the substances after a drug dealer appealed a two-years suspended sentence for selling herbs mixed with artificial cannabinoids—the active ingredients of cannabis—over the internet. The Bavarian state court in Landshut found that the man knew that he was selling consciousness-altering substances to people inside and outside Germany. His sales were often in amounts significantly larger than the 1.75 grams the state court decided would be “minor” for sentencing purposes after hearing evidence from...

The cabinet agreed on Wednesday to push for a new law aimed at stopping people from leaving Germany to fight for Islamist movements in the Middle East. Potential jihadists affected by the law would have their ID card confiscated for up to three years and replaced with a new one that does not allow them to travel outside Germany. The original draft law was to confiscate the regular ID cards for only 18 months. The law already allows authorities to confiscate the passports of people suspected of having terrorist connections, but many German citizens who have gone to fight for...

A German Muslim convert fighting with ISIS has warned his compatriots that Germans should “brace themselves” for terrorist attacks. The German jihadist Christian Emde issued the warning in an interview posted to Facebook by Jürgen Todenhöfer, a journalist who has reported extensively from areas in Iraq and Syria controlled by ISIS. Emde, who was expelled from Britain in 2012 for possessing jihadist publications, said ISIS would eventually seek to take over Europe. “We will one day conquer Europe. We don’t just want to. We will. And we are sure about that.” …

Some German police say they will not recognize military-issued driver’s licenses if the bearer doesn’t also possess a valid stateside license, a situation that raises concerns about whether many U.S. troops and civilians could face penalties for driving illegally. U.S. Army Europe said Wednesday that the issue was “in dispute” and cautioned that there was misinformation circulating through the U.S. military community in Germany. However, German police officials said that the regulations were clear, that anyone driving without a valid stateside license would be violating the law, and that the USAREUR license alone was not valid. Across the U.S. military...

Although the lights of of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin were extinguished to shame a PEGIDA demonstration last week, they were burning brightly yesterday as German Chancellor Angela Merkel joined a rally of Muslim inhabitants of Berlin. The rally, organised in part to show solidarity with those killed in Paris, and in part to signal opposition to the Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West (PEGIDA), featured Muslim community leaders, sung Islamic prayers, and a raft of top German politicians. Although the turnout was significantly smaller than recent PEGIDA protests, German leaders flocked to be seen at the event....

Hate preacher Anjem Choudary has called the latest front cover of Charlie Hebdo an “act of war” against Muslims. The magazine features Mohammed crying and holding a “Je Suis Charlie” sign, with the headline roughly translating to “Everything is forgiven”. But Choudary was unimpressed with the offering from the remaining staff at Charlie Hebdo claiming it was “ridiculing” Mohammed. He said the magazine was attacking the Muslim leader’s personality, and that publishing it was “extremely serious”. This is the second intervention by Choudary since Islamic terrorists launched the devastating machine gun attack on Charlie Hebdo that left 17 dead and...

Dugin uses a combination of geopolitics, political theory and philosophy to incite Russian nationalism. To put it bluntly, it’s nothing short of Russian fascism. Duginites see Eurasia as part of a greater Russian Empire. Land dominated by a superior culture and civilization. “Everything will fall into place if we recognize Russia as a civilization. Not just a country. In other words, Russia cannot be compared with other countries, such as Switzerland, France, Germany, Belgium, England, Italy and Spain. Russia should be compared with Europe as a whole or with the Islamic world, or with the Chinese civilization.” Marxists believed that...

DRESDEN, Germany -- Long before the terror attacks in Paris, anti-Muslim prejudice was on the rise in Europe. It was underscored Thursday during an anti-Islamic rally in Dresden, Germany. "We are the people," they chant. But this isn't a chant about a society being united. This is a chant of exclusion. An anti-Muslim rally in Dresden, Germany CBS NEWS They're part of a movement protesting what they see as the threat to German culture from rising numbers of Muslim immigrants to their country. Chancellor Angela Merkel may have said Islam is part of Germany now, but not to these people....

The anti-radical Islam group Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (PEGIDA) stages a protest every Monday in its native Dresden, Germany. On January 12, however, the group convened its largest rally yet, with 25,000 participants–significantly more due to last week’s terrorist attack in Paris, France. Attendees at the rally posted pictures and videos on social media.

Anti-Islam protesters gathered Monday in the German city of Dresden, with some carrying banners with the names of those killed in the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. It is the 12th march in Dresden called by the protest group Patriotic Europeans against the Islamization of the West, or PEGIDA, since October. Dresden police say the number of people attending these rallies has increased from an estimated 350 protesters on October 20 to 18,000 on January 5 and 25,000 people on Monday. The PEGIDA movement emerged last year in the eastern German city. About 2% of Dresden's inhabitants are foreigners. On...

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday Islam "belongs to Germany", in a clear repudiation of anti-immigration protesters gathering in Dresden and other cities. A day after walking arm-in-arm with French President Francois Hollande at the front of a massive march in Paris to honor the victims of killings by Islamic militants, Merkel received the Turkish prime minister and urged dialogue among religions. The conservative chancellor pointed to comments made by former German president Christian Wulff, who said in 2010 that Islam was part of Germany, triggering a fierce debate. "Former president Wulff said Islam belongs to...

In a show of solidarity with the French people both the leaders of Great Britain and of Germany, along with many other heads of state attended a Paris memorial service for the recent victims of the Islamic terrorist attack in Paris.The President of the United States Barack Obama was noticeably absent. Attorney General Eric Holder, who just happened to be in Paris on other business was the highest ranking American official in France at the time, but was also not seen at the ‘Unity March’ being held as part of the memorial services. Last August Barack Obama sent Attorney General...

751 "no-go" zones exist in France today. These "no-go" zones are areas in France that the French state does not control. These areas are Muslim-dominated neighborhoods. Non-Muslims dare not step foot into the areas.LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The "no-go" zones, officially called Zones Urbaines Sensibles (ZUS), or Sensitive Urban Zones range in size and quantity. According to reports, there is hardly a town if France that does not have at least one ZUS. ZUS formations began in late 1996, and more than 5 million people live in them; that's 8 percent of France's population. Area locations include the...

'On June 9, 1942, a speech was broadcast on the BBC that would change human history. Władysław Sikorski, Poland's prime minister exiled in London, revealed that 700,000 Jews had been systematically murdered in brutal Nazi concentration camps, quarantined and executed en-masse in ghettos, and walked to their deaths in gas chambers. This was the first time the world and the Allied forces had heard of the crimes of the Holocaust, a secret the Nazi leaders had been able to keep until now. The information, a dossier of photographs and documents, had come to London from Poland via Stockholm, thanks to...

Farid Benyettou .. The Islamist "spiritual guide" who allegedly helped radicalise the Kouachi brothers behind the deadly attack on Charlie Hebdo now works as a trainee nurse in the accident and emergency unit of one of the Paris hospitals where some of the victims of the assault on the magazine were taken. ... Benyettou was a known recruiter of candidates for jihad for Iraq, operating in the 19th arrondissement of Paris in the early 2000s. Jean-Julien Xavier-Rolai, the public prosecutor at the time, described him as the “spiritual guide” of the Kouachi brothers and “the link between the suburbs of...

The office of a German newspaper that printed Charlie Hebdo cartoons was the target of an arson attack early this morning. Vandals threw rocks at the headquarters of the Hamburg Morgenpost (MOPO), which reprinted cartoons from the satirical magazine at the centre of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week. Two men who were 'behaving suspiciously' in the area have been arrested by police and German state security have begun an investigation.