Free Republic

STOCKHOLM—A dispute between the Swedish armed forces and ThyssenKrupp AG TKA.XE +1.39% threatens one of the German industrial giant's most-profitable operations and could shake up the growing global submarine business. The row, which is partly over export possibilities, has prompted Sweden to yank contracts for the next generation of Swedish submarines from ThyssenKrupp, the world's largest exporter of nonnuclear submarines. Sweden has signaled that it instead is considering giving the work to Swedish defense company Saab AB. Currently, Saab doesn't build manned submarines, but it acknowledges it is trying to poach engineers from ThyssenKrupp's submarine unit, which is based around...

resident Barack Obama flies Sunday to a Europe shaken by Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea and his threats against eastern parts of Ukraine. At a summit conference at The Hague on preventing nuclear terrorism – scheduled long before the Ukraine crisis – Obama will confer with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders. On Monday afternoon Obama will meet with President Xi Jinping of China, Russia’s neighbor and sometime rival. Putin has forced the United States and Europe to refocus on the origins of the modern transatlantic alliance -- the 1949 NATO defense partnership designed to prevent a Russian invasion...

Germany on Saturday accused Russia of trying to splinter Europe, as a Cold War-style struggle over the future of ex-Soviet Ukraine ratcheted up following the Kremlin’s defiant annexation of Crimea. The haunting warning from a nation whose friendship Russian President Vladimir Putin had nurtured over his 14 years in power came amid Western efforts to shore up backing for the besieged interim leaders in Kiev who toppled a Kremlin-backed regime last month. […] The foreign minister of Germany—its economic power playing a decisive role in forging Europe’s response to Putin’s increasingly belligerent stance—warned that the continent’s entire future was at...

An overwhelming majority of Lufthansa pilots voted on Friday to go on strike over pay and conditions. No date has yet been set for the action. Of the airline's 5,400 pilots, 99.1 percent voted to take industrial action on Friday. The as-yet unscheduled strike could hit Europe's biggest airline any time in the coming weeks. Flights operated by Lufthansa, Lufthansa Cargo and Germanwings will be affected. Pilots' union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) said it would give 48 hours' notice before any strike, in order to minimise inconvenience to passengers. Pilots would also avoid the busy period over the Easter break from...

Watchdogs from several European countries have noticed no indication of a massive build-up of Russian military that would threaten the security of neighboring states, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said Sunday. According to Mr. Antonov, as many as seven inspection groups paid visits to Russian border territories over the past month. “Our facilities and deployment areas along the Russian-Ukrainian border were twice checked by the Ukrainian military,” he noted.Monitors from the US, Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, Poland, Latvia, Estonia and Finland scrutinized Russia’s military camps stationed on its borders with neighboring nations. “It must have been a simple...

A German backpacker survived by eating flies after becoming stranded by floodwaters in Queensland's outback, police say. Daniel Dudzisz, 26, was reported missing last month while on a walk between Windorah and Jundah, south-west of Longreach. He was picked up by a motorist late yesterday afternoon near Cooper Creek at Windorah. Police Inspector Mark Henderson says Mr Dudzisz had become lost and was stranded in the bush between two flooded sections of the Barcoo River for about 10 days. "He did see the choppers looking for him but they couldn't see him due to the tree coverage," Inspector Henderson said....

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared the G8 to be dead, thanks to Russia’s take over of the Crimea: German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared the Group of Eight leading nations defunct given the current crisis in Ukraine, in a clear message to Russia that the world’s seven other major industrialized countries consider its actions in Ukraine unacceptable. “As long as there is no political environment for such an important political format as the G-8, the G-8 doesn’t exist anymore, not the summit nor the format,” said Ms. Merkel, in Germany’s parliament, the Bundestag. “Russia is widely isolated in all international...

A simple plaque marks the forsaken spot where the Red Baron was buried in central Berlin but hardly anyone stops to remember the flying ace shot down in 1918. For Germans, the Great War holds so little interest. The centenary of the outbreak of World War One has caught Germany off guard, while Britain, France, the United States and others mark it with battlefield tours, television programs, exhibitions and plans for ceremonies on the day, in August. Germans aren't sure how, or even if, they should commemorate a war that cost them 13 percent of their territory, all their colonies,...

A senior Russian diplomat signaled a possible shift Wednesday in Russia's position on the ongoing Iranian nuclear talks amid tensions with the United States and other Western countries, according to The Associated Press. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by the Russian news organization Interfax as saying the recent sanctions announced by the European Union and U.S. may force Russia to retaliate by altering its stance on the Iran talks. Such a move would dramatically escalate tensions between Russia and the West, which are already high amid Russia's annexation of Crimea on Tuesday. "We wouldn't like to use...

Right on cue, as it becomes obvious that Europe needs to be less dependent on Russian gas and oil, environmental groups here in the US have begun stepping up presure on President Obama to reject building the infrastructure necessary to help realize that strategic need. A coalition of environmental groups is calling on the administration to reject permits that would build Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) export terminals. Environmental groups called on President Obama Tuesday to reject pending applications to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals, citing the negative impacts from natural gas throughout its life cycle.The pressure from green...

The continuing crisis in Ukraine has the reputedly peaceful Swedes rethinking the nation's defense doctrine, and some are using the situation as a way to push for NATO membership in the run-up to parliamentary elections. Only a few weeks after announcing cuts to the defense budget, Finance Minister Anders Borg told the TT news agency Wednesday "there is a lot indicating" that more money will have to be allocated to military defense. Much of the political debate leading up to the elections in September has been focused on the need to spend more on education and other domestic policies, so...

WASHINGTON, D.C. - With a few strokes of his pen, Vladimir Putin has in recent days both created the Republic of Crimea and annexed that new entity into the Russian Federation, thereby violating the territorial integrity of Ukraine. To hear Putin tell it in his address to the Duma, this action is not only perfectly legal, it also rights a historical wrong in which Russia was “robbed” of its rightful claim to the Crimean peninsula in 1954. President Obama has disputed the legality of these actions, observing that “President Putin seems to have a different set of lawyers making a...

Berlin has become the world's first city to have its own internet domain name. Companies and individuals in the German capital can now request web addresses ending in .berlin as alternatives to the more traditional options of .com, .org or the German national suffix .de. Addresses will be granted on a first come, first served basis and will each cost about €50 (£42) a year.

JERUSALEM, Israel -- Israel cannot depend on the U.S. to take the lead against the Iranian nuclear program, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said Tuesday. His remarks came just as the P5+1 (U.S., U.K., France, Russia, China and Germany) are about to begin the next round of talks on Iran's nuclear facilities. The U.S. should be leading the campaign against Iran, Ya'alon said, but instead it's making deals with it. Israel will do what it must to defend itself. "We thought that the one who needs to lead the campaign against Iran is the U.S.," the defense minister said during...

Here again we see the violent thuggery that is at the heart of people like this rapper and so very many of his coreligionists and Leftist allies. They cannot answer their opponents; they cannot meet them on the level of rational discourse. And so they move to shut them down through threats on the one hand and smear campaigns on the other. It is the mark of a culture of deep insecurity; however, faced as it is with a culture of appeasement and cowardice, it could prevail. “Geert Wilders to take legal action against rapper over video,” from Dutch News,...

London (CNN) -- Whatever U.S. and European leaders may say, it seems clear a majority of the residents of Crimea were only too happy to abandon Ukraine and join the Russian Federation. The referendum held there on Sunday was illegal according to Ukrainian constitutional law and took place under duress, following the large-scale incursion of "pro-Russian forces" -- and voters did not have the choice to say "no" to severing ties with Kiev. But these failings aside, it appears plain that most of Crimea's population, with the exception of the Tatar minority and some ethnic Ukrainians, was content to return...

Virtue has gone forth, It seeks its source , The holy and true, But will it be found on you ?! Those faithful to abide, In My presence and not hide, Those with the abilty, To drink from My cup and see, Clearly the Father's Will, To stand near My Voice and Quill, Those with the abilty to know, The understanding of the coals that glow, My pure and Holy Testimony, For these coals represent Me, And now this harvest that is mine, Is about to see and witness the Outpouring of My Spirit Divine, For all of Heaven and...

My order is inevitable for it is simply The Father's will concisely done in full view and commitment of My Witness that is My spirit in you . . . Acts 17:28 28 For in him we live and move and are! As one of your own poets says it, ‘We are the sons of God.’ John 14:12 I assure you, most solemnly I tell you, if anyone steadfastly believes in Me, he will himself be able to do the things that I do; and he will do even greater things than these, because I go to the Father. Job...

A series of 16th-century manuscripts that have been making waves on the Internet look like a Monty Python version of the Renaissance: They show cats outfitted with flaming backpacks, attacking castles and villages. But the illustrations are legit. They're intended to show how cats and birds could in theory be used to set fire to a besieged city, according to a University of Pennsylvania scholar. Mitch Fraas, scholar in residence at the University of Pennsylvania—the university digitized the manuscripts last year—says that the drawings are from artillery manuals and are accompanied by notes explaining how to use animals as incendiary...

China's top envoy to Germany has warned the West against punishing Russia with sanctions for its intervention in Ukraine, saying such measures could lead to a dangerous chain reaction that would be difficult to control. In an interview with Reuters days before the European Union is threatening to impose its first sanctions on Russia since the Cold War, ambassador Shi Mingde issued the strongest warning against such measures by any top Chinese official to date. "We don't see any point in sanctions," Shi said. "Sanctions could lead to retaliatory action, and that would trigger a spiral with unforeseeable consequences. We...