Free Republic

President Obama has been obsessed with Iran Monday, November 24, is the deadline for the negotiations between Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China regarding its program to build its own nuclear weapons to conclude. At this writing, whether the negotiations will be extended or not is unknown, but it seems unlikely. President Obama has been obsessed with Iran, seeking to change its hostility by finding an answer to the problem its nuclear weapon program represents. That is typical of his “magical thinking” whereby something he wants is automatically assumed to be accessible. In the case...

Poland and Russia expelled each other's diplomats this week and canceled cultural exchanges. But many Poles, driven by longstanding ties as well as business interests, want more dialogue. Will the new PM deliver? Anyone who has been listening to the Polish government this year would think Poles want nothing to do with Russia. Just this week, Russia said several of its diplomats were expelled from Poland, and in return, Polish diplomats were asked to leave Moscow. The Polish government cancelled a series of cultural events that were to be held next year to celebrate ties between the two nations, and...

So much for momentum on climate change. Reality bites. Without nuclear power, Japans emissions have hit a new record high. At the same time, even with 17% of its energy from Nuclear power, and with 23,000 wind turbines, Germany stands no chance of reaching its emissions targets. The rich, technologically advanced nation that has spent more than any other on green energy admits they’ve failed. Those who want to stop producing CO2 have billions of dollars to spend on advertising and pointless windmills, but in the end, chemistry and physics can’t be bought. If renewables could provide cheap reliable power,...

I found it very suspect that our King plus a huge trade delegation visited Japan a day before Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda announced the new extreme surprise round of stimulus. Gold Repatriation Stunner: Dutch Central Bank Secretly Withdrew 122 Tons Of Gold From The New York Fed http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-11-21/gold-repatriation-stunner-dutch-central-bank-secretly-withdrew-122-tons-gold-new-yor Need Tips on Sticking to your Trade Plan? Global Consequences The impact of the Dutch gold repatriation can be huge. First of all, because it underlines more and more countries are getting nervous about their gold reserves stored in the US. Venezuela repatriated most of its reserves from abroad in...

Germany’s Vice Chancellor, Sigmar Gabriel, has indicated that the country will abandon its commitment to reducing CO2 emissions by 40 percent by 2020, from a 1990 base level. In doing so he has won the ongoing clash with his own environmental minister Barbara Hendricks over energy policy, telling her that he will tolerate no further resistance to the change of direction, according to Der Speigel.

Under the punned headline “No wonder Vladimir Putin was Russian to leave the G20 summit,” the Daily Mail told of how he had eaten lunch alone, and of how commentators had joked that Mr Putin had been ‘relegated to Siberia’ in the ‘family photo’ of world leaders. It concluded that Mr Putin had fled the summit after a “stern” discussion with British Prime Minister David Cameron, in which Cameron told Putin that he was “at a crossroads”. Sounding wearily schoolmaster-ish, Cameron later commented “There's a real choice here, there's a different and better way for Russia to behave that could...

Wednesday, November 19, 2014 Tears Don't Protect Against Murder Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog After serving a few years in prison for his role in the Munich Massacre, Willi Pohl moved to Beirut. The brief sentence was a slap in the wrist, but Pohl had still served more time in prison than the Muslim gunmen who had murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches during the 1972 Summer Olympics. Mohammed Safady and the Al-Gashey cousins were released after a few months by the German authorities. They went back to Lebanon and so did he. A decade after...

BRUSSELS - Europe’s new foreign relations chief has denied the EU is in talks on Israel sanctions, despite a leaked paper on the issue. Federica Mogherini, who chaired her first foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels on Monday (17 November), told press the leaked paper is a “technical working hypothesis” which “member states requested” when her predecessor was in office. She added: “It is not at the heart of today’s discussions on how to start a positive process with the Israelis and Palestinians. There’s currently no question of sanctioning anybody. The question is rather how to motivate people to … restart...

It is a fundamental principle of German foreign policy that talks are the best way to solve diplomatic problems. Such was the rationale behind Gernot Erler's recent trip to Moscow to speak with Russian parliamentarians about the ongoing Ukraine-related difficulties. Erler is the German government's Russia liaison and he has spent much of his political career working towards better relations between Germany and Russia. But his recent trip to the Russia capital was a painful one. There was no one in parliament who was willing to speak with him.

One week to ‘finish the job’ in Iran nuclear talks ‘Failure would be a dangerous scenario for the entire world’ AFP Published: 14:30 November 16, 2014 Gulf News Vienna: Iran and six world powers begin a final round of talks in Vienna on Tuesday aiming to overcome significant remaining differences and agree a historic nuclear deal by a November 24 deadline. “There’s still a big gap. We may not be able to get there,” US President Barack Obama warned last Sunday. After 12 years of rising tensions, threats of war and failed diplomacy this accord would silence for good fears...

G20 leaders reveal global growth plan to boost GDP by $2 trillion The Associated Press Published Saturday, November 15, 2014 9:00PM EST Last Updated Sunday, November 16, 2014 1:45AM EST BRISBANE, Australia -- Leaders of the G20 nations finalized a plan Sunday to boost global GDP by more than $2 trillion over five years by investing in infrastructure and increasing trade. The communique issued at the conclusion of their summit in Brisbane, Australia says the leaders plan to jumpstart growth, in part, by creating a global infrastructure hub. The plan will purportedly help match potential investors with projects, and also...

In the East Ukraine the fights become more violent again. President Vladimir Putin of Russia is trying to brings down the West. Many Germans are still on his side – partly from a bad tradition. It is strange how strongly the Russian picture in the Germans is marked by the fantasy and projection and how little it deals with the reality. There the respect comes, maybe even the fear of the size of the Russian empire and the raw language of her politics. The power-deprived Germans are afraid to project power and forgot the words of the real politics. These...

A private plane carrying U2 lead singer Bono experienced an in-air incident Wednesday, with a rear door falling off the Learjet 60, an official with the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accident Investigation said. “The Learjet lost a door where the luggage was put in,” the official, Germout Freitag, told ABC News. Freitag said authorities don't understand why the door flew off.

Belgrade (AFP) - Some 10,000 supporters of the Serb ultranationalist Vojislav Seselj, released by a UN war crimes court for cancer therapy, joined him Saturday at a rally in protest at his country's shift towards Europe. The gathering was seen as a test of Seselj's influence at home, where he returned this week after almost 12 years in detention at the court in The Hague, yet to issue a verdict in his trial for crimes during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. "Serbia has to decide should it go towards the East (Russia) or towards the West, where all its...

Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to leave the G20 summit early after Western leaders lambasted him Saturday over the crisis in Ukraine and threatened further sanctions. “I guess I’ll shake your hand, but I have only one thing to say to you: you need to get out of Ukraine,” Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Putin, according to his spokesman Jason MacDonald, Reuters reports. President Barack Obama said the United States was at the forefront of “opposing Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, which is a threat to the world, as we saw in the appalling shoot-down of MH17.” German Chancellor Angela...

Believe it or not, I'm not offended by Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber calling the American people stupid for foolishly believing government healthcare was anything but a corrupt and radical ruse designed to control our lives. I'm simply disgusted so many voters, beneath the bankrupt generalities of "hope" and "change", were so easily manipulated by the lapdog media and a President who was never been held accountable for anything: most notably his radical past, beliefs and associates. Considering the size and scope of this cover-up - regardless of how many sounded the alarm - what else did we expect to happen?...

Yesterday, mankind achieved something seriously amazing: we landed a space probe on a comet millions of miles away from Earth. Unfortunately for the scientists involved in this momentous accomplishment, modern day “feminists” exist. One of the scientists was wearing a shirt covered in sketches of of scantily clad women. Not actual photos of women, but sketched images of pin ups in skivvies. So this chick from The Atlantic does what “feminists” do when encountering the inane: she lost her damn mind. Naturally, this scientist’s wardrobe selection means women are not welcome to participate in scientific oriented fields…

David Cameron has compared Russia to Nazi Germany because of its actions in Ukraine on the eve of a tense meeting with Vladimir Putin. Mr Cameron will on Saturday night challenge Mr Putin about Russia’s continued acts of aggression in Ukraine as it supplies heavy weapons and tanks to the separatists. In a reference to World War II, Mr Cameron said that the world must “learn the lessons of history” and intervene to stop “a larger state bullying a smaller state”. He said: "Russian action in Ukraine is unacceptable. We have to be clear about what we are dealing with....

Unfortunately I'll have to skip tomorrow's London Forum meeting. But I wish to write about the topic of one of the announced speeches, by Richard Edmonds: "Bad Nenndorf – a Nuremberg Trial for Allied War Criminals". The subject is described as "the tragedy of Bad Nenndorf where in the aftermath of WWII British torturers, many of them later emigrating to Israel, killed dozens of National Socialist sympathisers including girls belonging to the BDSM." Richard Edmonds is a British nationalist who is capable of criticising his country when necessary, who rightly doesn't believe that patriotism means defending the indefensible. I'd never...

Anti-racism activists in Norway have refused to participate in a Holocaust commemoration because members of the Jewish community were also invited to it, according to a Norwegian blog cited by the International Business Times (IBT). According to blog “Norway, Israel and the Jews,” Norwegian organization New SOS Racisme – which claims to act against racism – demanded that the "Zionist Jews of Bergen" be banned from attending the Kristallnacht memorial event held earlier this week. They "refused to participate in the Kristallnacht commemoration since a representative from the Mosaic Congregation [a conservative Jewish Congregation ] was invited. Yes, they balked...