Free Republic

Good Morning. The third attempt to form a new Swedish government since last September's General Election is underway this week..... The British Prime Minister Theresa May making her final pitch for her controversial Brexit plan considered a sellout to the European Union by those who campaigned for a total separation from the EU when Brexit was approved in the June 2016 referendum..... The leading political party in the polls in France right now, the National Rally led by Marine Le Pen, held a national convention over the weekend to roll out its list of candidates for the European Parliament elections...

A priest has been beaten up by two Syrians in Athens, Greek newspaper Proto Thema reports. According to the newspaper, the incident took place outside the Sanctuary of St. Nicholas in Patisia, Athens. When the priest was going to the Sanctuary he noticed that one motorcycle was illegally parked in the garden of the temple. After the priest complained to the Syrian owners about that, both the perpetrators started to punch him. As a result of the sudden attack the priest was injured. Until now the Greek police have arrested one suspect. Since the start of the migrant crisis Greece...

Researchers at the University of Leicester have unravelled a 2,700 year old mystery concerning The Oracle of Delphi -- by consulting an ancient farmer's manual. The researchers from the School of Archaeology and Ancient History sought to explain how people from across Greece came to consult with the Oracle... on a particular day of the year even though there was no common calendar... celestial signs observed by farmers could also have determined the rituals associated with Apollo Delphinios. Postgraduate student Alun Salt said: ..."I was playing around with a planisphere while suffering from insomnia. This is when I noticed that...

Singer Selena Gomez learned firsthand about some of the horrifying atrocities of sexual trafficking during her A21 internship, Christian author Ann Voskamp revealed. Gomez, who opened up about her volunteer work with the global anti–human trafficking nonprofit in an interview with Elle back in September, was taking notes when abolitionist Christine Caine shared of a grizzly discovery in Istanbul, Turkey. Caine, who leads A21, explained how 30 bloated bodies of young girls were discovered in a shipping container in Istanbul, with another 28 “gasping for one breath of air that isn’t thick with the stench of rotting evil.” She pointed...

On January 3, 2014, ISIS, then a growing force mostly ignored by the Obama administration, took the Iraqi city of Fallujah; liberated years later by our Marines, at great cost, from the predecessors of ISIS then called al-Qa’ida in Iraq (Ansar al-Sunni, Ansar al-Islam). “A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago…. The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic...

A total of seventy (70) partly or fully preserved Chian amphorae were recovered, which raised the number of amphorae stowed under the foredeck of the ship’s hold to ninety nine (99). Most of these amphorae were most probably carrying wine but at least one was full of olive pits, possibly for consumption by the crew. Also, two fishing weights were found, which offer us a glimpse of the life onboard the merchantmen of the period. Underneath the cargo, the wooden hull was poorly preserved, most probably (as a result of the wrecking episode and (the subsequent natural site formation processes...

Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called on Turkey to respect International Law at the Press Conference following the 5th trilateral meeting in Israel with Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades and Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday... “We have emphasised the need for respect of international law in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean. Respecting, in particular, the right of Cyprus to exercise its sovereign rights in its EEZ “. Mr Tsipras went on to underline the need for a just and viable solution of the Cypriot problem with the scrapping of the guarantees on the occupied part of the island and...

Stern warnings from Greece to Turkey. Stern words in return, as well. Defence Minister Panos Kammenos warned that Ankara would pay for violating Greek airspace by Turkish jets over the Aegean. The minister said whilst visiting a military outpost on the Aegean island of Leros, “If they make the slightest move, we will crush them,” adding that Athens wants peace and harmony but it won’t “concede a single centimetre” of its land. His words seem aligned with Admiral Evangelos Apostolakis, chief of the Hellenic General Staff, who said: “If the Turks land on a rocky islet, we will raze it...

FBI agents served a federal search warrant at a lice removal salon in Los Altos Wednesday (Dec. 5) morning, but declined to say what the investigation was about. Agents showed up at LoveBugs Lice Removal, located at the Rancho Shopping Center, around 8 a.m. Wednesday, according to an employee at the 76 gas station nearby who said a customer had seen the agents. FBI spokeswoman Cameron Rogers Polan declined to say what the investigation was about because, she said, the affidavit supporting the warrant had been sealed by a judge. LoveBugs founder Marika Mavromatis did not return multiple requests for...

President Andrew Jackson took a keen interest in the construction of the federal mint in Philadelphia, a grand, columned edifice, inspired by the temples of ancient Greece, that opened in 1833. Jackson was not a man known for his appreciation of cultural and artistic pursuits. A populist who famously railed against the elites, he had initially wanted to construct a simple building for minting money quickly, because there was a severe shortage of specie—coins—in the country at the time. Gradually, though, he came around to the idea of a grander mint, and became personally involved in many aspects of the...

No arrests or injuries were immediately reported, but images showed supporters in the stands left bloodied and an explosion going off before the match began. Police also clashed with mostly Greek fans in parts of central Athens earlier Tuesday and late Monday. Rival Greek supporters were involved in the violence near the city's police headquarters. Traffic was blocked after youths hurled petrol bombs at rival supporters and police.

This week, word began to spread around some corners of the web that a new piece of the legendary ancient Greek computer known as the Antikythera Mechanism may have been found. But the claims, which surfaced following a Haaretz feature on the ongoing archaeological work in the area where the device was first uncovered, are misleading at best... ...in 2017... marine archaeologists from the Greek Ephorate of Underwater Antiquities and Lund University in Sweden uncovered more treasures including pieces of a bronze statue and an encrusted bronze disk with four tabs on it that appeared almost like a cog wheel....

I am already sick of Turkey.I suspect that many Americans feel this way, about the bird and the country. Yet a small group of Washington foreign policy hands — at State Department, at Pentagon and in congressional offices — continue to make the case for Turkey as a “strategically important” partner to the US. On paper, the country looks good: It sits at the center of many of Americas most pressing foreign policy concerns, it is a member of NATO, it's stable, and it can offer foreign partners access to its airbases and intelligence cooperation. I used to think of...

The paychecks of the Hamas members, which were being paid through financial aid by Qatar, were passed on in suitcases in a heavily guarded vehicle. Palestinian protesters pelted the convoy of Qatar’s ambassador to the Palestinians, Mohammed Al-Emadi, with stones Friday as he came to observe the weekly demonstrations along Gaza’s border fence with Israel, according to The Jerusalem Post’s sister publication Maariv. Gazan media reported that those leading the attack against Al-Emadi were from the Palestinian faction of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. PFLP members had earlier refused to take part in the meeting with the...

An Arab newspaper reported on Saturday that Israel and Qatar are hammering out a deal that would allow Hamas to operate a sea crossing between Gaza and Cyprus. According to the Lebanese Al Akhbar, the prospective seaport is part of a wider Egyptian-brokered cease-fire between Hamas and Israel. While Hamas demands that the crossing be monitored through video cameras, Israel wants both Israeli forces and international elements to monitor the seaport to prevent weapons smuggling. The report comes as a long-term cease-fire between Israel and Hamas appears to be gaining traction. A central part of the deal has been Qatar's...

At least four Kouros-type statues from the Archaic era were among four unearthed during excavations in October by the ephorate of antiquities of Fthiotida and Evrytania in the wider area of Atalanti in central Greece. Archaeologists commenced digging in the area after a landowner in Atalanti reported that he found the trunk of a naked male statue as he was tilling his field. Kouros is the name given to free-standing ancient Greek sculptures representing nude male youths. They first made their appearance in the Archaic period. Their figures began to appear in Greece about 615-590 BC. While many aspects of...

FULL TITLE: EU votes for total ban on organizations opposed to mass Muslim migration, thought police to be created “The Parliament is concerned by the increasing normalisation of fascism, racism and xenophobia and calls on EU states to ban neo-fascist and neo-Nazi groups.” The problem with this is that the EU labels as “neo-fascist” and “neo-Nazi” all those who oppose their agenda of mass Muslim migration and want to preserve European states as free societies. “MEPs argue, that there is a legal laxity towards ‘right-wing organisations’ in some member states and that this is one of the reasons behind the...

World War I ended with the Ottoman Empire vanquished and facing imminent collapse, its doomed alliance with Imperial Germany costing hundreds of thousands of Ottoman lives and dealing a death blow to the already creaking empire. But 100 years after the surrender of the Ottomans to the Allied powers at Mudros on October 30, 1918, the Great War is in no way seen as a pointless waste or even a defeat by modern Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Rather than focusing on the four years of devastating conflict that ended in the capitulation and eventual dissolution of the empire,...

Archaeologists have found what they believe to be the world’s oldest intact shipwreck at the bottom of the Black Sea where it appears to have lain undisturbed for more than 2,400 years. The 23-metre (75ft) vessel, thought to be ancient Greek, was discovered with its mast, rudders and rowing benches all present and correct just over a mile below the surface. A lack of oxygen at that depth preserved it, the researchers said. “A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible,” said Professor Jon Adams, the...

The Greek Culture Ministry announced that five additional vessels have been discovered in the ship graveyard off the coast of the Fourni Islands, bringing the total number of ships found there to 58, according to an Associated Press report. The area in the Aegean Sea, at the junction of two main shipping routes, is known for its treacherous waters, and contains wrecks dating from the fourth century B.C. through the nineteenth century A.D. The newly discovered ships rest in shallow waters and show signs of damage from fishing nets and plunderers, but the archaeological team, assisted by local fishermen, found...