Free Republic

The European Union must not bow to threats from Turkey to push millions of Syrian refugees into EU countries, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Friday, adding that Ankara should stop its military operations in northern Syria at once. “The EU cannot accept this blackmail. Turkish efforts to welcome in Syrian refugees cannot then become a tool of blackmail for a military initiative that we cannot accept and which must immediately stop,” Conte told reporters. Turkey, which still formally aspires to join the European Union despite mounting EU criticism of Ankara’s human rights record, has been stung by EU...

A number of countries have condemned Turkey's offensive, and Finland, Norway and The Netherlands have already announced that they are stopping arms exports to the country, noted AFP...Trump will sign an executive order expanding the administration's ability to impose sanctions on Turkish officials. Mnuchin said that the executive order does not itself contain new sanctions, but gives Trump the authority to enact them.

Germany is willing to contribute more to NATO's running costs as long as other allies also step up to help reduce the United States' share of funding, German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer said on Friday. President Donald Trump has long accused European allies, especially Germany, the biggest economy in Europe, of taking U.S. security guarantees for granted and says they need to spend much more on their own defense. With a meeting of NATO leaders looming in December, some allies now see reform of financing for the U.S.-led military alliance as a way to preempt another round of criticism from...

The mayor of Rome has condemned a "shameful" effigy of climate activist Greta Thunberg discovered hanging off a bridge near the city's airport on Monday. Mayor Virginia Raggi voiced her solidarity with Thunberg and her family in a tweet. “Our climate commitment does not stop,” the tweet read, according to a translation from the tabloid The Sun. The dummy had pigtails like Thunberg and a sign that said "Greta Is Your God!" ABC's Virginia station WSET reported. Firefighters and local police have since removed the effigy, according to la Repubblica and WSET. Thunberg has gained international attention as she has...

Ask Internet entrepreneur and Silicon Valley venture capitalist Reid Hoffman how he decides which companies to invest in, and he’ll tell you he has a simple litmus test to determine whether to give the idea a closer look. “I want to invest in companies that play to one or more of the seven deadly sins,” Hoffman said. For those a bit rusty, those sins would be: lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy and pride. Hoffman, best known as co-founder of LinkedIn, says the business-professional networking-platform most embodies the deadly sin of greed. “In the end, LinkedIn is helping someone earn...

Mainstream media outlets and the former members of the Deep State who supply them with information and quotes are outraged that Attorney General Barr went to Rome to obtain information about Joseph Mifsud. Mifsud is the professor who helped ignite the controversy that led to the Mueller investigation. It’s almost as if these outlets and Deep Staters are fearful about what Barr might learn. Some critics suggest that flying to Rome for investigative purposes is a waste of the Attorney General’s valuable time and of taxpayer dollars. Others say the investigation itself is misguided, if not sinister. Our government expended...

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is holding meetings in Italy, held a press conference on Wednesday afternoon in Rome. Secretary of State Pompeo told reporters he was on the July 25th Ukrainian call which would be expected. He also said the policy with Ukraine is consistent. Of course, this is what the liberal media latched onto. But then Pompeo dropped these bombs on the street thugs and goons running the US House committees. Pompeo told reporters how Democrats in the House violated fundamental principles, contacted State Department officials directly and told them NOT to contact legal counsel. Secretary of...

Vatican police raided the offices of the Holy See's Secretariat of State and its Financial Information Authority, or AIF, on Tuesday and took away documents and electronic devices as part of an investigation of suspected financial irregularities, a Vatican statement said. It was believed to be the first time the two departments were searched for evidence involving alleged financial crimes. The Secretariat of State, the most powerful department in the Vatican, is the nerve center of its bureaucracy and diplomacy and the administrative heart of the worldwide Catholic Church. The AIF, headed by Swiss lawyer Rene Bruelhart, is the financial...

TITLE: Barr Went to Rome to Hear a Secret Tape from Joseph Mifsud, the Professor Who Helped Ignite the Russia Probe. Barr was in Rome on an under-the-radar mission that was only planned a few days in advance. An official with the embassy confirmed to The Daily Beast that they had to scramble to accommodate Barr’s sudden arrival. He had been in Italy before, but not with such a clear motive. Barr and Durham are looking into the events that led to Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, and suddenly all roads were leading to Rome. The Italian Justice Ministry public records...

If I were a Democrat, I would be afraid, I would be very afraid, after reading former Attorney General Michael Mukasey's Monday WSJ oped: "John Durham's Ukrainian Leads." The subtitle is "What the prosecutor has found may be quite different from what the Democrats are looking for." Mukasey begins: "Americans often boast that we are a nation of laws, but for the moment laws appear to play a decidedly secondary role in the drama we are living in and—hopefully—through." True enough, but the nub of the article, which returns us to the rule of law, comes further on: "True, much...

The Prime Minister of Italy has fired two of the countries most powerful intelligence chiefs in a major shake-up. It was directly attributed to their participation with John Brennan and the CIA in using Joseph Mifsud to set up George Papadopoulos as a pretext for launching the great Russia Hoax of 2016. “Russian agent” Jospeh Mifsud is actually an American Asset.

First, the context… On Thursday night Carl Bernstein said: William Barr is preparing to deliver “evidence of a deep state conspiracy.” Bernstein’s statement followed on the heels of Chairman Jerry Nadler proclaiming: “The President dragged the Attorney General into this mess,” [Nadler wrote on Twitter after the transcript was released]. “At a minimum, AG Barr must recuse himself until we get to the bottom of this matter.” Then on Friday during an interview on MSNBC Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said AG William Barr had “gone rogue” in his efforts to protect President Trump. Amid the newly visible sense...

First, the context… On Thursday night Carl Bernstein said: William Barr is preparing to deliver “evidence of a deep state conspiracy.” Bernstein’s statement followed on the heels of Chairman Jerry Nadler proclaiming: “The President dragged the Attorney General into this mess,” [Nadler wrote on Twitter after the transcript was released]. “At a minimum, AG Barr must recuse himself until we get to the bottom of this matter.” Then on Friday during an interview on MSNBC Morning Joe, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said AG William Barr had “gone rogue” in his efforts to protect President Trump. Amid the newly visible sense...

Scientists aren't particularly surprised to find volcanism in the region, which is home to active volcanoes like Mount Vesuvius and Mount Etna. But the new complex is unusual because it was created by a rare kind of fault... The western Mediterranean is seismically restless because of the collision of three tectonic plates: the African, the Eurasian and the Anatolian. Making matters more complex is a small chunk of crust called the Adriatic-Ionian microplate, which broke off of the African Plate more than 65 million years ago and is now being pushed under the larger Eurasian Plate in a process called...

A painting found hanging in an elderly French woman's kitchen was found to be a long-lost panel from a polyptych by 13th-century Italian artist Cimabue. The painting, titled "Mocking of Christ," is scheduled to be auctioned Oct. 27. Photo courtesy of Acteon =========================================================== Sept. 24 (UPI) -- A long-lost painting by pre-Renaissance painter Cimabue is headed to auction after being found hanging in an older French woman's kitchen. Experts said the Compiegne woman decided to have the painting hanging in her kitchen appraised and numerous tests were conducted that confirmed it to be the work of 13th-century Italian artist Cimabue,...

Italy has seen a rise in so-called “phantom” boat arrivals as traffickers ferry migrants across the Mediterranean from Tunisia rather than Libya without being spotted, a prosecutor warned Saturday. The closing window of opportunity to reach Europe before the onset of winter has also seen a spike in the numbers of crossings, just ahead of a meeting of interior ministers on the hot-button topic of migration on Monday in Malta. Of the more than 6,620 people to have arrived in Italy since the start of 2019, some 5,500 have done so autonomously, managing to approach the coast or land without...

Italy’s new left-leaning government has allowed a rescue vessel carrying 82 migrants to come ashore on the island of Lampedusa, after nearly a week at sea. Many of those on board the Ocean Viking, operated by charities SOS Méditerranée and Doctors Without Borders, are expected to be relocated to other countries, with Germany and France each pledging to take 25 percent of the passengers. Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, stressed that the move did not herald the return of an “open ports” policy. But it represents a sea change from the hardline stance of the previous coalition government between...

Hillary Clinton visited an art exhibit in Venice, Italy this week which displayed 60,000 pages of her ’emails’ she sent over her private server. The artist, Kenneth Goldsmith, printed up 60,000 pages of Hillary Clinton’s emails that somehow managed to survive her BleachBit spree and called the exhibit, “HILLARY: The Hillary Clinton Emails.” “Donald Trump said, ‘Where are her emails? Lock her up!’ And I said, ‘You know what? Here they are, and there’s really nothing to them.’ It’s kind of an anti-monument,” Goldsmith told artnet News. “Trump literally made a mountain out of a molehill.” Hillary mocked Americans and...

Modern continental Europe keeps trying to solve its political problem — and then to impose its solution on everyone within reach. Recognizing this historical process can help us understand European anti-Americanism, strongest perhaps in Germany. America created the Europeans' political predicament, and we keep preventing them from adopting the solutions they come up with. America created the Europeans' political problem by the magnificent example of the American Revolution and the astonishing, world-changing success of America. In an interesting version of the story of the emperor's new clothes, rule by hereditary monarchs, hereditary aristocracies, and established churches was suddenly revealed to...

How the Left validates Islam’s sexual fantasies and victimization of Western women. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Western women are to blame for being raped by Muslim men.  Such is the latest position—the latest apologia—being offered by those Western elements dedicated to exonerating undesirable Muslim behavior, particularly in order to continue taking in more Muslim migrants. According to a August 9, 2019 report, “in the Swedish city of Uppsala … four women were raped in as many days….  Two ‘completed rapes’ took place last weekend, with another attempted rape on Saturday night, and another sexual...