Free Republic

Prominent Black Lives Matter activist Sasha Johnson is critically ill after being shot in the head, her party says. The Taking the Initiative Party (TTIP) said she was being treated in intensive care after being “brutally attacked” in the early hours of Sunday. The 27-year-old has life-threatening injuries following the shooting on Consort Road, in Peckham, south London. TTIP said Ms. Johnson had undergone an operation and remained in critical care, in recovery post-surgery. A vigil was held in Ruskin Park, close to King’s College Hospital, where Ms. Johnson is being treated. Well-wishers played African drums and prayed for Ms....

Radical ‘Black Panther’ Sasha Johnson has called for the creation of a “race offenders’ register” that would block people from securing work if they have been found to have made “microaggressions” and demanded that black people in the UK receive “Holocaust-style” reparations. The radical activist first rose to prominence in July after a Breitbart London viral video showed Sahsa Johnson proclaiming that British police are “no different than the KKK” and calling for the establishment of a “Black Militia” to fight racism in Britain.

A new political party inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement plans to contest seats at the next General Election, the Mail on Sunday can reveal. Among those spearheading the Taking The Initiative Party (TTIP) is Sasha Johnson, who has been whipping crowds into a frenzy during recent protests. Wearing camouflage trousers, a black beret and a stab-proof-style vest, she told supporters at last weekend’s Million People March in London that the TTIP “will be the first black-led political party in the UK. We want representation. This is what democracy looks like”. […] The party has been registered with the...

French President Emmanuel Macron said Thursday he viewed talks between US President Donald Trump and EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker as “useful”, but he was “not in favor” of a “vast new trade deal” between the European Union and the United States. “Europe and France never wanted a trade war, and the talks yesterday were therefore useful in as far as they helped scale back any unnecessary tension, and working to bring about an appeasement is useful,” the French leader said after a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in Madrid. “But a good trade discussion… can only be...

A leading German think tank says Donald Trump is right that tariffs between the United States and Europe are asymmetrical, but urges negotiations to lower import taxes across the board. US President Donald Trump may actually have a point when it comes to unfair taxes on US goods coming into Europe. That is the finding of a new study by a leading German think tank. Where they differ is how to deal with it: The group urges new talks to lower tariffs across the board, instead of engaging in a tit-for-tat escalation in new taxes. “The EU is by no...

The Trump administration announced Thursday it will impose tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Europe, Mexico and Canada after failing to win concessions from the American allies. Europe and Mexico pledged to retaliate quickly, exacerbating trans-Atlantic and North American trade tensions. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said the tariffs would be 25 percent on steel and 10 percent on aluminum, and go into effect on Friday, as the administration followed through on the penalties after earlier granting exemptions to buy time for negotiations. President Donald Trump had announced the tariffs in March, citing national security concerns. The European Commission’s president,...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich hinted again Sunday at a possible 2020 presidential run by ripping the Republican Party and declaring “I can bring that party back.” The Republican governor accused the GOP of being “anti-immigrant, anti-trade, in favor of debt,” and implored party members to “come home.” “We should care about people from top to bottom, not just at those at the top but everybody,” Mr. Kasich told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “I can bring that party back, that’s what I’m going to do, in one way or another.”

... US Commerce Secretary Ross had hinted last month in an interview with US media that the Trump administration would be "open" to resuming talks on a free trade pact with the EU. However, his speech on Tuesday was the clearest signal yet that talks could resume. "I stand before you tonight to say this in a more explicit fashion: we, as major trading partners of each other, should have a free trade agreement," Ross said. Initial talks on creating a free trade area on both sides of the Atlantic had been ongoing for years, but came to a halt...

The EU foreign policy chief says Europe does “not see eye to eye” with the Trump administration on major issues such as trade, climate change and funding of U.N. agencies, but can “easily” work with the U.S. on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Federica Mogherini spoke Saturday during a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum. Mogherini warned that threatened U.S. cuts in funding U.N. agencies “would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe.” …

A top economic adviser to US President Donald Trump bashed Germany for exploiting an undervalued euro to take advantage of its trading partners, the Financial Times reported Tuesday. The public rebuke of a major trading partner is the latest example of the brash tactic that has become a feature of the new US administration, with Trump himself using public attacks and Twitter to criticize businesses and allies, including Mexico. Peter Navarro, who advised Trump during the campaign and heads the White House’s new National Trade Council, said in an interview with the FT that Germany “continues to exploit other countries...

European leaders head to Berlin Friday to seek assurances from US President Barack Obama on the course that Donald Trump might take, given the populist mogul’s pledges to shake up the world order. […] Ahead of the talks, Obama sounded a note of cautious optimism that Trump could change his position once he takes on the role as president. “There’s something about the solemn responsibilities of that office … that forces you to focus, that demands seriousness,” Obama said at a press conference following a meeting with his host Chancellor Angela Merkel. “And if you’re not serious about the job,...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Thursday stressed her continued support for an EU-US trade agreement being negotiated but recently declared dead by her deputy and by a French minister. “It is in our interest not to fall behind other world regions, such as the Asian region which has concluded such an agreement with the United States,” the conservative leader told public broadcaster NDR. “I believe that such an agreement would mean job opportunities for us, and we urgently need jobs in Europe.” …

Free trade talks between the European Union and the United States have failed, Germany’s economy minister said Sunday, citing a lack of progress on any of the major sections of the long-running negotiations. Both Washington and Brussels have pushed for a deal by the end of the year, despite strong misgivings among some EU member states over the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP. Sigmar Gabriel, who is also Germany’s Vice Chancellor, compared the TTIP negotiations unfavorably with a free trade deal forged between the 28-nation EU and Canada, which he said was fairer for both sides. “In my...

Two massive and dangerous “trade” agreements, the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) loom on the near horizon. Like icebergs of doom, they lie mostly submerged, threatening to rip asunder the hulls of all sovereign ships of state that dare to sail their waters.We place the word “trade” in quotation marks because these twin pacts, which the Obama administration has listed as top priority items on its overall agenda, run to thousands of pages and establish international “rules” for hundreds of domestic issues that have nothing to do with traditional notions of trade, ranging from...

As the battle over TTIP was lost, Angela Merkel feigned resolution yet one more time. "We consider a swift conclusion to this ambitious deal to be very important," her spokesperson said on her behalf on Monday. And this is the government's unanimous opinion. But the German population has a very different one. More than two-thirds of Germans reject the planned trans-Atlantic free trade agreement. And even in circles within Merkel's cabinet, the belief that TTIP will ever become a reality in its currently planned form is disappearing. That's because on Monday morning, Greenpeace published classified documents from the closed-door negotiations....

Outrage is growing on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean following a massive new leak of the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a globalist “trade” agreement negotiated between the Obama administration and the European Union. The leaked documents are being used, properly in some cases, to portray the treaty as a giant handout to Big Business cronies. Just as importantly, the almost 250 pages of text also confirm once again that the controversial new “trade” regime aims to merge the regulatory regimes of the United States and the EU under unaccountable transnational institutions. In short, the threats to...

The U.K Independent is reporting that a massive 800 page leak (sourced to Greenpeace activists) of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) may doom the ongoing negotiations.

Greenpeace charged on Monday that a massive US-EU trade deal would place corporate interests above the environment and consumer safety, as it released classified documents from the negotiations. […] Greenpeace said the papers show, for example, that the US wants to be able to scrap existing EU rules in areas such as food labeling or approval of dangerous chemicals if it they spell barriers to free trade. “TTIP is about a huge transfer of power from people to big business,” the group argued, having also projected an image of a classified text passage onto the façade of Berlin’s parliament building....

LONDON — The Dutch chapter of the environmental activist group Greenpeace leaked on Monday what it called a trove of documents from the talks over a proposed trade deal between the European Union and the United States. The proposed deal, which President Obama would like to see finalized before he leaves office, has already received criticism on both sides of the Atlantic. According to Greenpeace, the documents indicate that American trade negotiators pressed their European counterparts to loosen important environmental, consumer protection and other provisions as part of the deal, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. The documents,...

The British government’s sole assessment of the shadowy Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) deal indicates there are “lots of risks and no benefit,” according to documents seen by Global Justice Now. In February a freedom of information (FoI) request was made to the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) to find out whether risk assessments had been carried out in relation to the secretive deal, which is currently in its 13th round of negotiations. The BIS reported that the only assessment had been carried out by the London School of Economics (LSE), which found “little reason” to believe...