Free Republic

Chancellor Angela Merkel is renewing a push for European countries to make binding agreements to carry out economic reforms as she underlines continuity in her new government’s approach to the continent’s debt crisis. […] Countries currently receive non-binding annual recommendations on reform steps from the European Union’s executive Commission. Merkel is calling for binding contracts in the future though she expects only “slow progress” on the issue. …

Nickel's evidence includes newly translated ancient records that tell a fantastic tale of giant statues that "appeared" in the far west, inspiring the first emperor of China to duplicate them in front of his palace. This story offers evidence of early contact between China and the West, contacts that Nickel says inspired the First Emperor (which is what Qin Shi Huangdi called himself) to not only duplicate the 12 giant statues but to build the massive Terracotta Army along with other life-size sculptures. Before the First Emperor's time, life-size sculptures were not built in China, and Nickel argues the idea...

A tradition a thousand years old, passed on to generations in today's remote Donje Ljubinje in the Zhupa area in south Kosovo. Today, this tradition is at the verge of extinction, as only a 65-year-old lady continues preparing young brides according to their traditions. The bride's face is painted in many beautiful layers of color. Three golden circles symbolizing the cycles of life are tied to one another by the golden roads that one crosses over their lifetime. The inner red circles are symbols of fertility, where red and blue dots are born from, and the whole face is covered...

The city of Heracleion was engulfed underwater 1500 years ago. This grand city had been mentioned by the Greek writer Herodotus, the 5th-century BC historian. He had told a wonderful tale of Helen of Troy, who traveled to Heracleion, then a port of 'great wealth', with her Trojan lover, Paris. When French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio stumbled upon some relics, it led them to one of the greatest finds of the 21st century; a city underwater. The discovery took place when Goddio had been in search of Napoleon’s warships from the 1798 Battle of the Nile, when he had been...

A recent World Health Organization report paints an alarming picture regarding the health implications of Europe’s economic crisis, including how some Greek citizens are infecting themselves with HIV in order to receive 700 euros in government benefits. The findings highlight how startling levels of unemployment and severe, mandated government cutbacks are trickling down to European citizens. The September WHO report concludes that the economic crisis that began in 2008 has “exacerbated” health problems in Europe and “exposed stark social and economic inequities within and between countries.”

In a decision by the Greek government that has stunned natives, especially those who recall centuries of Islamic rule under the Ottoman Empire, a mosque will be built in Athens at taxpayer expense.

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

In a decision by the Greek government that has stunned natives, especially those who recall centuries of Islamic rule under the Ottoman Empire, a mosque will be built in Athens at taxpayer expense. The Greek Ministry for Infrastructure, Transport and Networks announced last week that it has chosen the builders who will erect the mosque. The worship center will cover 6,500 square feet and cost Greek taxpayers some $1.3 million. Work will commence at the beginning of the New Year.   The project involves the renovation of an existing government-owned building on a former naval facility in the Votanikos...

...Hollande is much more focused on tapping into Israel’s know-how to help his country’s beleaguered economy. “Israel is, from an economic point of view, with the high-tech industry, considered to be very valuable,” Dr. Tsilla Hershco, a senior research associate at Bar-Ilan University's Begin-Sadat (BESA) Center for Strategic Studies told The Media Line. “With all the turmoil around us, Israel is considered the one stable state in the Middle East from a political and economic point of view.” France has suffered greatly since 2008, when a worldwide economic downturn brought the European Union to the brink of collapse. Since then,...

ROME, November 8, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A law in Greece that allows civil unions for heterosexual couples but does not include same-sex partners has been declared illegal by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). When a country provides legal recognition to unmarried heterosexual couples in the form of civil unions, the court said in a ruling issued Thursday, same-sex partners must also be able to benefit in the same way. In a judgment in the joint cases of Vallianatos and Mylonas v. Greece and C.S. and others v. Greece, the Grand Chamber of the ECHR ruled that the Greek...

Greek riot police have cleared the headquarters of the defunct national broadcaster, temporarily detaining at least two journalists. The raid, ordered by the prime minister, began at 4am local time, causing a clutch of journalists and technicians guarding the facility to scramble. ERT was shut down in June when the government sacked the network's 2,700 staff as part of cost-cutting measures linked to Greece's €240bn (£202bn) bailout programme. Government spokesman Simos Kedikoglou said the eviction was "legal" and that a prosecutor had escorted police during the operation at the sprawling compound north-east of Athens.

The United States Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether or not the sectarian prayers offered at a New York town's meetings are constitutional. The highest court in the land will hear an appeal from a lower court decision regarding Greece, N.Y.'s practice of having explicitly Christian prayers open town meetings. Known as Galloway v. Town of Greece, the lawsuit was filed by two residents of Greece who felt the sectarian prayers made them feel excluded from the public affairs of the town. Susan Galloway and Linda Stephens, the two plaintiffs, are being represented by the Washington, D.C.-based group...

One thing that makes the energy sector so intriguing is the constant overlap between markets and politics. In many ways, energy security is synonymous with national security, and the supply and demand needs of the oil market can make the most unlikely bedfellows. One country that has been at the center of energy and politics for decades has been Israel. For years the country has been dependent upon foreign energy sources, but a major discovery by Noble Energy (NYSE: NBL ) and its partners has turned this situation on its head. Let's look how this massive natural gas find could...

Turkey’s Zorlu Energy is in talks with Israeli firms over the potential for a pipeline to carry Israeli gas to Turkey, industry sources say, but the political rift between the two former allies is holding up progress. Israel is set to become a gas exporter by the end of the decade after the discovery of two major offshore fields off its Mediterranean coast - Leviathan and Tamar. Turkey, dependent on imports for almost all of its energy, is looking to diversify away from expensive Russian gas and could become a customer as well as providing a transit route to other...

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has rejected allegations that Turkey gave intelligence to Israel during an attack against a military base near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia early Oct. 31. “There is an attempt to give the impression that Turkey has coordinated with Israel. We have issues with Syria, an issue based on a principle. But let me say it clearly: The Turkish government has never cooperated with Israel against any Muslim country, and it never will,” Davutoğlu told reporters during a joint press conference in Istanbul Nov. 1 with his visiting Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif. Several reports said,...

ATHENS, Greece (AP) -- A drive-by shooting killed two members of Greece's Nazi-inspired Golden Dawn party and wounded one outside a party office in Athens on Friday night, in what officials are treating as a likely far-left domestic terrorist attack. The government and opposition parties - all who have long ostracized Golden Dawn as a group of neo-Nazis - quickly condemned the attack, which the left-wing main opposition Syriza said "targets democracy" in Greece. The two victims, aged 22 and 27, were shot at close range from a motorcycle carrying two men, Golden Dawn lawmaker Georgios Germenis told The Associated...

As Turkey rapidly re-Islamizes, it appears to be trying to create the justification for a new jihad offensive against Israel. "Turkish military ‘trying to provoke an incident’ with Israelis in Mediterranean," from the World Tribune, October 31: TEL AVIV — Turkey has been challenging Israel’s military throughout the Mediterranean. Military sources said Turkey has used its Navy and Air Force to disrupt Israeli operations around the Mediterranean. They said the Turkish Air Force and Navy harassed Israeli warplanes during patrols and exercises over the last six months. “They are trying to provoke an incident with us that could have strategic...

Europe and China have agreed a currency swap deal to boost trade and investment between the regions. Under the terms of the deal between the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China, the swap facility could total as much as 350 billion yuan and €45 billion. … For years Beijing has kept tight control of the yuan, pegging the currency to the U.S. dollar as a way of promoting manufacturing in its export-driven economy, though it has slowly been loosening its hold recently. The swap deal will allow more trade and investment between the regions to be conducted...

A 300-year drought may have caused the demise of several Mediterranean cultures, including ancient Greece, new research suggests. A sharp drop in rainfall may have led to the collapse of several eastern Mediterranean civilizations, including ancient Greece, around 3,200 years ago. The resulting famine and conflict may help explain why the entire Hittite culture, chariot-riding people who ruled most of the region of Anatolia, vanished from the planet, according to a study published in August in the journal PLOS ONE. Lost golden period Even during the heyday of Classical Greek civilization, there were hints of an earlier culture that was...

The music of ancient Greece, unheard for thousands of years, is being brought back to life by Armand D'Angour, a musician and tutor in classics at Oxford University. He describes what his research is discovering. "Suppose that 2,500 years from now all that survived of the Beatles songs were a few of the lyrics, and all that remained of Mozart and Verdi's operas were the words and not the music. Imagine if we could then reconstruct the music, rediscover the instruments that played them, and hear the words once again in their proper setting, how exciting that would be. This...