Free Republic

US Vice President JD Vance warned Wednesday that Moscow and Kyiv must strike a deal or Washington will end its efforts to reach a ceasefire. 'We've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either say yes, or for the United States to walk away from this process,' Vance told reporters in India, where he is on a four-day visit. -snip- 'It's now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the party saying we're going to...

We’ve all watched the way paying for things has changed over the years. First it was coins, then cards, then phones and smartwatches. But now, it looks like the next big step is… you. Literally. Your face, your fingerprint, even your eyes could soon be all you need to pay for your next coffee, your weekly food shop, or even your pharmacy run. It might sound futuristic, but this is already in the works here in Spain. Banks and big-name retailers are gearing up for pilot programmes as soon as 2026, and if all goes well, we’ll be seeing biometric...

Tariffs of up to 45 per cent on Chinese-made electric cars imported into the European Union may be replaced with a new ‘minimum pricing’ system after previously stalled discussions between the two trading partners were re-started. A ‘minimum pricing’ arrangement – also referred to as ‘price floors’ or ‘price undertakings’ – between the European Union (EU) and China would see tariffs abolished and set minimum prices agreed upon. According to Reuters, European trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic has said any new policy would have to be as effective as tariffs, given the approach has previously only been applied on ‘homogenous commodities’....

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates for the seventh time in a year, looking to prop up an already struggling economy that will take a large hit from US tariffs. The bank announced a cut of one-quarter of a percentage point, which brings its benchmark deposit rate down from 2.5% to 2.25%. The move will immediately benefit tracker mortgage customers and put downward pressure on other rates. The ECB has been lowering borrowing costs as post-pandemic price pressures retreat and recent trade-related turmoil on global markets is adding to the case for further policy easing. […] While US...

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel said Wednesday it would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, where a relentless military offensive has turned the Palestinian territory into a "mass grave", a medical charity reported. Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people. "Israel's policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said in a statement. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian...

The EU needs to strive for progress in building its own defense capability and improving its competitiveness, Ursula von der Leyen saidBERLIN, April 15. /TASS/. European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has asserted that a renewal of the European Union is needed so it can actively participate in the shaping of a new world order. "We need another, new European Union that is ready to go out into the big wide world and to play a very active role in shaping this new world order that is coming," she said in an interview with Die Zeit. That said,...

Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelensky shares the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for "millions of people dead" in the Ukraine war. "When you start a war you got to know you can win," he said, also blaming former US President Joe Biden for the conflict. "Millions of people dead because of three people," Trump said on Monday. "Let's say Putin number one, let's say Biden who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky." It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, but not "millions", of people have been killed or injured on all...

The European Commission is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States amid fears of espionage in Trump’s America. It’s the kind of security measure typically saved for trips to China or the Ukraine, where the fear of IT surveillance is high. But three European Commissioners will test out burner phones and basic laptops at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, sources told the Financial Times. The move from the European Commission, the primary executive arm of the European Union, marks a new era of American-European relations, which have all but dissipated since...

Europe is once again talking about forming its own defense alliance. The idea of a European army—discussed on and off since the early days of the Cold War—was revived in February by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president claims that Donald Trump’s retraction of military support for Ukraine and ambivalence towards the EU shows that the bloc urgently needs its own military unit. Zelensky has reignited a debate that has failed to generate consensus within Europe, despite its long history.Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is the latest EU leader to echo Zelensky—and according to a YouGov poll conducted in 2022,...

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a...

NATO is a corpse. All that remains is the grotesque performance art of a diplomatic zombie stumbling from summit to summit, mouthing tired clichés about “shared values” and “burden sharing,” even as its core strategic logic lies rotting beneath the surface. The Atlantic Alliance, once the steel scaffolding of Western security, has become a hollow ritual. Its military readiness is an illusion. Its political cohesion is fraying. Its future, if it has one, lies not in revival—but in reinvention or replacement. This is not a triumphalist declaration from the Kremlin or Beijing. It is a sober diagnosis, grounded in realism...

The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, practically begged the United States to rejoin the UN-run agency after President Trump made good on his vow to pull the plug on U.S. participation on his very first day back in office. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to formally withdraw the United States from the WHO, citing its failure to hold China accountable and its role in pushing radical globalist health agendas that undermine American sovereignty. Trump’s executive order halted all U.S. funding to the WHO, redirecting those resources to...

(2024) On Nov. 4, Dartmouth Dining began enrolling students in a palm biometric recognition scanner system at the Class of 1953 Commons. Starting this winter term, students will be able to use palm biometric technology to enter the Class of 1953 Commons instead of swiping in with a physical ID card. The biometric technology is created by IDEMIA, a technology company that specializes in biometrics and cryptography. According to Dartmouth Dining director Jon Plodzik, any student who wants to utilize the new system in the winter term can complete the enrollment process by visiting the signup area in ’53 Commons....

Financial experts are seeing a spike in affluent working Americans looking to resettle in Europe. They say it's time for Europe to prepare for their arrival. Russian-American *Julia had wanted to leave the United States for a couple of years, but the start of President Donald Trump’s second term forced her to start taking the idea seriously. "I noticed people who are immigrants [like me], they were a lot more worried after the election happened," she told Euronews Next. "We saw the warning signs right away". The anesthesiologist worked on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City...

BRUSSELS, April 6 (Reuters) - European Union countries will seek to present a united front in the coming days against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, likely approving a first set of targeted countermeasures on up to $28 billion of U.S. imports from dental floss to diamonds. Such a move would mean the EU joining China and Canada in imposing retaliatory tariffs on the United States in an early escalation of what some fear will become a global trade war, making goods more expensive for billions of consumers and pushing economies around the world into recession.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Thursday for European companies to suspend planned investment in the United States after US President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on American imports. “Investments to come or investments announced in recent weeks should be suspended until things are clarified with the United States,” Macron said during a meeting with French industry representatives. “What would be the message if big European actors invest billions of euros in the US economy at the very moment they are hitting us?” he asked. […] The comments come weeks after French shipping firm CMA CGM announced plans to...

Marie Le Pen was just banned from running for president of France for five years. That’s more like forever. Le Pen is deemed a criminal and sentenced to wear an electronic tag for a couple years. A French court claims she embezzled. But why would we believe a French court any more than we believe a Manhattan or D.C. district court? Trump’s been through those wringers. Macron and his mates did to Le Pen what Romanian elites did to Calin Georgescu, the populist candidate for president there. Reportedly, he was the frontrunner. If you smell a rat, you’re right. French...

The EU recently passed one of the most far-reaching laws in modern history: the Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD). Most Americans probably assume that the European Union is a benign organization that merely advocates for the broad interests of its member countries. Although this may have been the case in the decades after the birth of the EU following the end of World War II, it certainly is not the case today. Today, the EU is a 27-member bloc with a collective GDP of $18.6 trillion, which aims to update the global economic order by inflicting its radical leftist...

European Union regulators are preparing to hit Elon Musk's X platform with a huge fine which could surpass $1billion for breaking disinformation laws, insiders have reportedly revealed. The move would likely to ratchet up tensions between the EU and United States, with tech billionaire Musk a close adviser to President Trump. The social media platform could also face forced product changes for failing to abide by the landmark law to combat illicit content and disinformation, sources told the New York Times. The penalties are expected to be announced this summer, the sources said, and will be the first to be...

Germany’s likely new coalition government, expected to be formed between the conservatives (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), is planning a law that could effectively ban politicians deemed ‘unpleasant’ or ‘populist’ from standing for election. A draft coalition paper, presented to the press last week, proposes a significant tightening of the country’s already repressive ‘incitement of the masses’ law. Under the proposal, politicians convicted more than once under the law would no longer be allowed to stand as a party candidate. Germany’s law against incitement of the masses (Section 130 of the Criminal Code) has long been a tool to...