Free Republic

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was among the targets of an investigation in Turkey into suspected bribery and money laundering in connection with a scheme to help Iran evade sanctions, a former Istanbul police officer has testified. The officer, Huseyin Korkmaz, told a New York court on December 11 that the Turkish investigation that he led in 2012-2013 initially focused on Turkish-Iranian businessman Reza Zarrab, who U.S. prosecutors have said was the mastermind behind the Iran sanctions evasion scheme, but later grew to include dozens of others. He called Erdogan the "No. 1" target in a group that also included...

Furious Trump says Republicans will eventually 'have another shot' at Alabama's Senate seat as shell-shocked White House blames Steve Bannon for stunning loss Donald Trump fired off a conciliatory tweet Tuesday night shortly after Roy Moore, the candidate he endorsed in the Alabama Senate race, was knocked off his high horse by Democrat Doug Jones. But the tone of his words didn't capture the rage that filled the White House residence, according to two sources with knowledge of the president's mood. 'Congratulations to Doug Jones on a hard fought victory. The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a...

Newspapermen were rarely whiners. Whining became fashionable only after “journalists” overran newsrooms. The best newspapermen, so the folk wisdom went, were Southerners, Jews and the Irish. Southerners loved the words and the occasions to tell stories, the Jews for the opportunity to do public good, and the Irish for the bottle frequently slipped into the bottom desk drawer by boosters, lobbyists, public-relations flacks and others up to no particular good. Such an irreverent formulation was enough to offend everybody, but in the old days no one took offense because everybody knew that nobody would particularly care if anybody did. What...

Full Title: Here’s How Trump’s Pledge To Move The U.S. Embassy To Jerusalem Changes The Palestinian-Israel ‘Peace Process’ President Trump’s decision to have the United States recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was not taken in a vacuum. It was another step in changing the moribund Palestinian-Israel “peace process” into something else. What else is not clear, but the intention and the antecedents are. The intention is to disabuse the Palestinians of the notion that the U.S. is neutral between them and our democratic, pro-Western, tolerant, free-market ally Israel. Clarity will actually make the U.S. an honest broker in...

SAN FRANCISCO -- When British Prime Minister Tony Blair attends a reception in his honor at George Shultz's San Francisco home tonight, it will be the only social event of his four-day visit to the Bay Area. From the time he arrived on his British Airways charter at 5:30 Friday evening until the reception with the former secretary of state, Mayor Gavin Newsom and business and community leaders, Blair has been holed up at the Fairmont Hotel, working on his speech to the World Affairs Council in Los Angeles on Tuesday and handling government affairs at long distance. "I know...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged the European Union on Monday to back a new U.S. peace initiative in the Middle East, after President Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital met with widespread condemnation and triggered clashes in the Palestinian territories. Netanyahu, making the first official visit by an Israeli premier to the EU’s Brussels headquarters in 22 years, told reporters that recognizing Jerusalem merely stated the reality on the ground. He said he expected many European countries to follow Trump’s lead. But EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, who chaired talks between Netanyahu and EU...

The European Union’s top five economies are warning the United States that its massive tax overhaul could violate some of its international obligations and risks having “a major distortive impact” on trade. In a letter to U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, the finance ministers of Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Spain wrote they had “significant concerns” about three tax initiatives in particular. In the letter, seen by The Associated Press, the five wrote that “it is important that the U.S. government’s rights over domestic tax policy be exercised in a way that adheres with international obligations to which...

Tony Blair insisted he was no 'warmed-up neo-Thatcherite' yesterday as he sought to reassert his traditional Labour credentials in the run-up to the election. In a speech in London, the Prime Minister moved to galvanise disaffected party activists who believe he has lost touch with their values by warning that Labour must now 'fight to keep' the social changes it had made over the past eight years. Highlighting achievements with old Labour appeal, from the minimum wage to overseas aid, Blair said: 'This is not some warmed-up neo-Thatcherism or an uncertain drift into splitting the difference: it is the most...

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Hamas' new leader in the Gaza Strip said Monday his group has repaired relations with Iran after a five-year rift and is using its newfound financial and military aid to gear up for new hostilities with Israel. The announcement by Yehiyeh Sinwar came as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was visiting Israel. At a meeting with the U.N. chief, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complained about what he called rising anti-Israel activity by Iran and its allies in the region. Iran was once the top backer of Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel's...

Blair re-elected to Socialist International post amid protests SAO PAULO (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites) was re-elected vice president of the Socialist International, drawing protests from delegates who said his support of the US-led war in Iraq (news - web sites) made him ineligible. Socialist parties in Argentina, Chile, Panama, Mexico and Nicaragua sought to derail the re-election of Britain's Labour Party leader. "It is necessary to make a distinction between the Labour party and its place in history and the leadership of Tony Blair, which has been so horrible for world peace," said Hernan...

THERESA May stepped in to stop a blazing row between two top Cabinet Ministers, it emerged last night. Tensions between Chancellor Philip Hammond and new Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson over defence funding boiled over in a heated Commons row. The PM was forced to step in and break up the ‘toe to toe’ row during a Brexit vote on Wednesday night. A source said: “She made it clear the two of them should grow up and calm down. “After slugging it out toe to toe, they trudged off like naughty schoolboys.” One Tory MP said: “The PM could see it...

This sounds as surreal as it gets, but unfortunately, this is the world we live in. Today’s news is about a school teacher who lost his job for the crime of “misgendering”. Yest, that’s a real word used by the politically correct social justice warriors nowadays. The crime, you asked? Well, this is a math teacher, 27 year old Joshua Sutcliffe, who made the fatal mistake of saying “well done girls” to a group of his pupils, after presumably they did good on a test or something. The problem is that among the group of girls was a special girl...

The bell is tolling for Europe. All the warning signs are turned on red. A demographic catastrophe is in the making. If Europe fails to make a stand, its Judeo-Christian civilization is about to be blown away. Last week, the renowned Pew Research Center published updated figures about the growing Muslim population in the broader EU region (i.e. the 28 European Union member states plus Switzerland and Norway). The figures are truly dramatic. Unless there are radical changes to the present policies towards immigration, 30.6% of the population in Sweden will be Islamic by the middle of the century. Sweden...

Security Council became a kangaroo court, turning a perverted version of “international law” against the Trump administration for its just defense of the Jewish state of Israel and Israel's right to choose its own capital On December 6th, President Trump announced his decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and to instruct the State Department to begin the process of relocating the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Two days later, at a special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, the other 14 members of the Council, including U.S. allies such as France, the United...

After the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) had warned that China was trying to recruit German informants for intelligence services via social media networks, Beijing denied these accusations on Monday. They are “baseless accusations” for which there is no evidence, said Lu Kang, a Chinese state department spokesman, adding that the relevant organizations and the German government should act “more responsibly.” The BfV had previously warned that Chinese intelligence were trying to infiltrate parliaments, ministries and authorities with informants, particularly via the professional social media network LinkedIn. […] The BfV added that the aim of Chinese...

U.S. ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley knew exactly how to respond to CNN anchor Jake Tapper's depressing assessment of the U.S. embassy move from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem during their interview on Sunday. "President Trump is supposed to be a master negotiator," Tapper noted. "Isn't this just cashing in a chip and getting nothing for it? How does this move the peace process forward in any way?" Watch Video HereIn addition to leading questions like that, Tapper quoted the Arab League calling the move a "dangerous development," then played a clip of the PLO Secretary-General declaring that Trump had...

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.” …

"I strongly condemn any attack on Jews anywhere in the world and on Israeli citizens," the EU foreign minister said...

The EU's diplomatic chief Monday bluntly rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's suggestion that Europe would follow the US in recognising Jerusalem as the Jewish state's capital, saying there would be no change to its stance on the holy city. Netanyahu said the controversial announcement by US President Donald Trump -- which prompted diplomatic alarm and street protests across the Islamic world -- had "put facts squarely on the table". As he arrived for talks in Brussels, Netanyahu said he expected "all or most" European countries would follow the US -- but the 28-nation bloc's foreign policy head Federica Mogherini...

Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri is now disclosing the nature of his resignation, and why he left Lebanon to spend time in Saudi Arabia. It appears the Saudi and regional partners provided evidence that Iran and Hezbollah were planning an assassination targeting Hariri and his family.