Free Republic

20-year study into the effects of long-term cannabis use has demolished the argument that the drug is safe. Cannabis is highly addictive, causes mental health problems and opens the door to hard drugs, the study found.

Germany 'Would Accept UK Exit From EU' To Protect Migration Rules Angela Merkel is reported to have told David Cameron that she will not negotiate on EU migration Chancellor Angela Merkel would rather see the UK exit from the European Union than compromise over the principle of free movement of workers, according to the German magazine Der Spiegel. Mrs Merkel is alleged to fear that the UK is approaching a "point of no return". Downing Street would not comment on the reports. Mr Cameron wants to renegotiate the terms of the UK's continued membership before holding an in-out referendum. The...

Putin's Western Allies: Why Europe's Far Right Is on the Kremlin's Side Gabor Vona, president of the Hungarian radical right-wing party "Jobbik," delivers a speech at a rally in Budapest, March 15, 2014.(Bernadett Szabo / Courtesy Reuters) Given that one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated reasons for invading Crimea was to prevent “Nazis” from coming to power in Ukraine, it is perhaps surprising that his regime is growing closer by the month to extreme right-wing parties across Europe. But, in both cases, Putin’s motives are not primarily ideological. In Ukraine, he simply wants to grab territory that he believes...

This should be a wake-up call to Europe, long accustomed to living under the U.S. defense umbrella, to take more responsibility for its own defense. So far this year, NATO jets have had to scramble 100 times to intercept these airspace intruders just to show that the West's perimeters are still protected. That's three times as many as intercepted in 2013. It also coincides with a strange submarine incursion in Swedish waters, believed to have been Russian. There's no doubt about it, Russia wants its Cold War empire back, and a complacent, "Finlandized" Europe. Vladimir Putin continues in his quest...

UKIP is on course to crush the Conservatives in the Rochester and Strood by-election, according to a new poll last night. The Survation poll for the Unite trade union gave Ukip candidate Mark Reckless a 15-point lead over his former party. The lead has widened by six points since an identical poll last month, and suggests that a huge Tory effort to hold the seat is failing to gain traction. The poll puts support for Ukip on 48 per cent, with the Conservatives on 33, Labour, who came second in 2010, on 16 per cent, the Greens on two percent...

A plaque marking the 1918 birthplace of former Israeli President Chaim Herzog in Belfast was removed earlier this week, out of fears of further anti-Semitic violence in the Northern Ireland city. The blue plaque honoring Herzog, who was President of Israel from 1983 to 1993, was first erected on a property at Cliftonpark Avenue in 1998. The 16-year landmark was torn down, however, due to concern for Jews living in the area. Democratic Unionist Party Councillor Brian Kingston explained the decision to the Belfast Telegraph. "Attacks have included the scrawling of anti-Israeli graffiti on the building and items being thrown...

Between July and November of 1917, one of the greatest disasters of the Great War unfolded near the Belgian town of Ypres, where the British and their allies fought the Germans for control of some ridges running through Flanders. Better known as the Battle of Passchendaele, hundreds of thousands of men occupied trenches, dugouts and underground tunnels on the front lines. Among the British forces there were many seasoned infantrymen who could claim to have seen all the technological terrors so far gathered together on World War I battlefields—machine gun fire, poison gas, strafing and bombing by aircraft. But for...

British Prime Minister David Cameron insisted Friday he would not pay a European Union bill for an additional €2.1 billion ($2.65 billion) contribution to the EU coffers at a time of increasing pressure at home for the country to leave the bloc. Thumping his fist in frustration, Cameron said “people should be in no doubt: as an important contributor to this organization, we are not suddenly going to get out our checkbook and write a check for €2 billion. It is not happening.” Cameron said asking Britain for a top-up of some 20 percent in its contributions on short notice...

It isn’t just Maureen Lipman. This morning the actress and comedienne has announced she will not be voting Labour at the next election. “Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse” she writes in Standpoint magazine, “just when the anti-Semitism in France, Denmark, Norway, Hungary is mounting savagely, just when our cemeteries and synagogues and shops are once again under threat. Just when the virulence against a country defending itself, against 4,000 rockets and 32 tunnels inside its borders, as it has every right to do under the Geneva Convention, had been swept aside by the real pestilence of...

President Barack Obama marked a milestone Sunday on the way to one of the most important, controversial, and riskiest promises of his presidency: winding down the American-led coalition's combat role in Afghanistan in preparation for ending the long war there next year. American and British combat operations formally came to an end in Helmand Province, one of the bloodiest theaters in the U.S.-led war against the Taliban and a primary focus of Obama's 2010 surge of tens of thousands of American reinforcements charged with beating back the revitalized insurgency. But there were no White House statements issued Sunday to commemorate...

Ukraine, Russia and the European Union signed a deal on Thursday that will see Moscow resume vital supplies of gas to its ex-Soviet neighbor over the winter in return for payments funded in part by Kiev's Western creditors. After several failed rounds of talks in recent weeks as conflict rumbles on despite a ceasefire with pro-Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine, the accord also eases concerns that a new "gas war" could disrupt winter supplies if energy to EU states, notably through pipelines shut down across Ukraine since June. With overnight temperatures already nudging below freezing in Ukraine, European Commission President...

Parents of students at Littleton Green Community School were outraged after they found out that if their children decided not to attend a controversial field trip, they would be officially deemed racist. The trip was to a religious workshop about the Muslim faith, and administration warned that a “racial discrimination note” would be added to the students’ school records, should they fail to join. As to be expected, parents did not take the information lightly, especially since the class consisted of children as young as eight years old.

Once the pinnacle of civilization, the UK has succumbed to the culture of death once again.  A mother was granted a petition to kill her own twelve year-old daughter, who was not dying of a terminal disease, not on life support, and not able communicate her wishes. If you’re ill and unhappy, or just unhappy with life, death is the answer, according to supporters of euthanasia.  Dying by your own choice is all the rage in Belgium, with a 27% increase in doctor-assisted suicides in the last year.  Both Belgium and the Netherlands have legalized child euthanasia by the child’s...

Three brothers alleged to have abused more than 50 girls in Rotherham remain at large - despite police being told about their activities more than a decade ago, it has been claimed. A former Rotherham Council researcher said mentions of the brothers, who are of Pakistani descent, featured ‘very heavily’ in a dossier she produced for police in 2001 on suspected abusers in the town. But the information was never acted upon - and the researcher has told MPs that the men have never been prosecuted for the alleged abuse, despite facing other charges on different criminal matters. In her...

Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, has claimed British towns are being “swamped” by immigrants and their residents are “under siege”, in an escalation of the emotive language being used by Tory ministers calling for a renegotiation of the UK’s relationship with Europe. In terms reminiscent of Margaret Thatcher in the 1970s, he said on Sunday that in some areas of the UK, large numbers of migrant workers and foreign people claiming benefits should be subject to some form of restraint – or risk dominating the local population. “In some areas of the UK, down the east coast, towns do feel...

A team of British special forces were dispatched to the Turkish- Syrian border to help brave Kurdish fighters battle against Islamic State (IS) gunmen. The British troops called in several air strikes, killing dozens of IS fighters and halting their advance towards Kobane, just inside the Syrian border. In one attack, SAS guided warplanes into an area where IS fi ghters were massing for an attack The US jets dropped several 500lb bombs into the area, killing and injuring dozens of fighters.

A 65 million year old tsunami is still wreaking havoc in the scientific community, a New Mexico State University professor says. The 300-foot-tall tsunami - an aftereffect of the giant meteor impact that some scientists think killed off the dinosaurs - scrambled fossils and rock and has made the event very hard to date, said Timothy Lawton, head of NMSU's geology department.

In February 2014, while promoting his World War Two film, The Monuments Men, Hollywood A-List actor George Clooney declared that Britain should send the Elgin Marbles back to Greece. Despite claiming they came from the Pantheon in Rome rather than the Parthenon in Athens (and also that they had been taken by Lord "Eljin"), he felt that returning them was now appropriate. This was fiercely controversial territory. However, once the furore had died down, most people wrote it off as a kooky PR stunt. Until last week, when it emerged that George Clooney’s new wife, Amal Clooney, a lawyer specialising...

Irish senators have adopted a non-binding motion on Palestine recognition, as the EU prepares to set out new red lines on Israel relations. The motion, tabled by Averil Power from the opposition Fianna Fáil party, passed without a vote on Wednesday (22 October) after winning cross-party support. It urges the Irish government “to formally recognize the state of Palestine and do everything it can to help secure a viable two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”. Power told the Senate that in the past 20 years “while pretending to talk peace … [Israel’s] illegal settlements in the West Bank have trebled...

Child exploitation is a hidden crime, and offences at home are the biggest concern, says Norfolk chief constable Simon Bailey. There will be more Rotherham-style child sexual exploitation scandals unearthed in the coming months as the “stone is lifted” on the scale of abuse perpetrated on the young, one of Britain’s top police officers has warned. In an interview with the Guardian, Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk police, who is the leading officer concerned with child abuse within the Association of Chief Police Officers, said that sex crimes involving children had for “too long been a hidden crime”. He...