Free Republic

Tyler O'Neil, an investigative journalist with "The Daily Signal," has brought to light new information about the use of USAID funds in Albania, particularly regarding the persecution of opposition leader Sali Berisha. His impactful statements were made during a U.S. Congressional meeting of the special committee on government efficiency, titled "The Last America: How Foreign Aid Undermined U.S. Interests Around the World." In this session, O'Neil claimed that the Open Society Foundations and USAID worked together to support the East West Management Institute, which received $31.2 million in USAID funding. He noted that these funds were allegedly used to target...

The Balkan Peninsula... by the early 20th century, the Ottoman Empire was in steep decline. This decline fueled nationalist movements in the Balkans, where various ethnic groups sought independence or territorial expansion. Countries like Serbia, Greece, Bulgaria, and Montenegro, which had gained independence or autonomy in the previous century, aspired to expand their territories further, often at the expense of their neighbors and the Ottoman Empire. These aspirations were driven by both nationalistic fervor and the desire to control strategic territories like Macedonia, a region with a highly diverse population. In response to these growing tensions, the Balkan League—a coalition...

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is doubling down in the new year, emboldened by the right-wing expansion in the world with the historic election of Donald J. Trump in the US, and several developments in Europe – in Romania, Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK… and many other nations. The ’most powerful person in Europe’ Meloni is riding this wave, reigniting her much-praised and much-maligned plan to send ‘asylum seekers’ (a.k.a. illegal migrants) to Albania for processing and posterior deportation. The right-wing government in Italy is bucking against the pressure from their own Globalist unelected Judicial system. Reuters reported: “Italy’s...

On April 29th, 2006, America's Truth Forum presented a symposium titled, The Underlying Roots Of Terrorism: Terrorism's Threat to World Peace & National Security at the Doubletree Hotel Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia. These are notes taken at the event by Scott Swett and Tim Ziegler. Jeff Epstein, President of America’s Truth Forum, began by thanking the veterans in the room and noting the work of Frank Salvato, editor of The New Media Journal, who runs America’s Truth Forum web site and produces the group’s Terrorism Update Newsletter. Epstein said that the Pakistani journalist Hamid Mir has interviewed Osama Bin...

Charles McGonigal, a former FBI agent who helped lead the investigation into Trump-Russia connections, is expected to plead guilty to charges of unlawfully working for a Russian oligarch.In an ironic turn of events, one of the individuals who worked tirelessly to take down former President Donald Trump by falsely accusing him of secretly collaborating with Russian officials and hackers was, in fact, the one engaging with influential Russians at the time.McGonigal, 54, a former top FBI counterintelligence agent based in New York, was charged in January with money laundering and violating United States sanctions by working for a Russian oligarch...

Prime Minister Meloni's flagship policy in doubt after the first batch of migrants sent to Albania are returned to Italy following a court ruling. The Italian coast guard took 12 migrants back to Italy on Saturday from newly opened asylum processing centres in Albania following a court decision in Rome. The ruling is a key hurdle in the administration’s plan to outsource some of its migrant processing to Albania. The 12 were part of the first batch of 16 migrants to be sent to the two centres that opened last week under a five-year deal to host 3,000 migrants per...

Homeland Security: In a sign background checks are far too lax, an alarming number of Arabs and Muslims have landed sensitive government jobs only to be caught later spying for the enemy.Guarding against penetration by terrorist agents and sympathizers should be a top concern of public agencies, but it's not. Guarding against charges of job discrimination is. Multiculturalism and political correctness have made it easier for the terrorists to use Arabs and Muslims to infiltrate the government and steal security secrets. In the latest example, a former city 911 operator faces multiple felony counts for allegedly searching the names of...

Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said Sunday his country would transform the Tirana-based Bektashi Muslims, an Islamic Sufi order, into a sovereign state to promote moderation, tolerance and peaceful coexistence.

Egypt ruler moved to pull down Cheops Pyramid of noble motives Cairo, 13:30 An Albanian with Macedonian origin, Muhammad Ali Pasha, ruler of Egypt, Syria and Arabia in 19th century, had ordered his French engineer Linan to pull down the Cheops Pyramid. The Great Pyramid of Cheops had been rescued with two piastres, the then Egyptian currency. This information was documented in archive paperwork kept in Revolution Museum depots. Media in Egypt cited extracts of these documents. According to documents, the then Egypt ruler Muhammad Ali wanted to remove stone blocks from their pyramid in order to build a dam...

The 2023 census of Albania has shown a notable demographic change that marks a historic transformation in the religious scene of the nation. Muslims are no longer the majority of the population for the first time in more than 200 years. The Muslim count dropped to 45.7% based on the most recent census figures. This is a clear departure from past years when Muslims often accounted for the majority. On the other hand, the nonreligious population has grown somewhat steadily, reaching 23.4%. Furthermore, the Orthodox Christian community has expanded and now accounts for twenty percent of the population overall The...

This is a video about the Socialist People's Republic of Albania, a state that lasted for half a century and epitomised an isolationist and quasi-xenophobic foreign policy. While today Albania is open to the world and nominally democratic, despite its issues with corruption, in the mid to late 20th century it was ruled by a paranoid tyrant akin only to North Korea's Kim Il Sung - this video intends to shed some light on this relatively unknown period of European history and specifically the life and disposition of one of the most brutal dictators Europe has ever seen. There's so...

TIRANA, Albania (AP) – Ukraine´s president pleaded Wednesday for more ammunition to repel Russian advances as he co-hosted a summit with Albania’s government to build further support for Kyiv among southeastern European countries while signs of war fatigue grow. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that increasing the supply of armaments, and especially ammunition, was paramount for Ukraine just over two years since Russia´s full-scale invasion. “I think this is the question of: Will we stand or not,” he said during his speech to the summit. His impassioned plea comes as Russian troops have seized the initiative on the battlefield in...

The trial in Sweden of Hamid Noury, an agent of the Iranian regime, ended on May 5th. The prosecutor told the court that there was plenty of evidence to show that Hamid Noury committed the crimes he had been charged with and she asked for him to be sentenced to life imprisonment. The verdict is expected later. The court case in Stockholm has been a direct embarrassment to Iran’s executioner president, Ebrahim Raisi, dubbed ‘The Butcher of Tehran’ for his hands-on role in the killing of thousands of political prisoners, including teenagers and even pregnant women, during a notorious massacre...

Anxious FBI chiefs are trawling through 'numerous' top-level investigations spanning 22 years for fear they were compromised by convicted bureau spook Charles McGonigal, DailyMail.com can reveal. The forensic clean-up operation ranges over the entire time the philandering former head of counterintelligence in New York worked for the agency. McGonigal, 55, has already been sentenced to four years and two months in prison for taking money and conspiring with a sanctioned Russian oligarch who is a crony of despot President Vladimir Putin. But the full possible repercussions of his treachery are outlined in a sentencing memorandum by the US government for...

Former FBI agent Peter Strzok said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that he believed supporters of former President Donald Trump were “engaging in threats of violence,” while supporters of President Joe Biden were not prone to violence. Strzok said, “My biggest concern is that we have the presumptive Republican nominee for president who has and continues to engage in calls for violence from his supporters. Look, there’s an interesting data point here. Just shortly after the Michigan Supreme Court indicated they weren’t going to take this up, Donald Trump took to Truth Social and lauded their decision, talked about how they...

Former high-ranking FBI official Charles McGonigal started tearing up Thursday as he was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison for colluding with a Russian oligarch to evade US sanctions. McGonigal, 55, was ordered to surrender by Feb. 26, 2024, made to serve three years of supervised release following his time behind bars, and was fined $40,000. After he exited the courthouse, McGonigal told onlookers, “Happy holidays.” McGonigal, who helmed the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, pleaded guilty to the charge back in August. “[McGonigal] well knew his actions violated those sanctions,” Manhattan federal judge...

A George Soros-backed prosecutor in Virginia mistakenly freed a man charged with murder who was apprehended the following day in Georgia. The office of Loudoun County prosecutor Buta Biberaj (D.) on Thursday dropped second-degree murder charges in general district court for 25-year-old Stone Colburn, who last year was accused of stabbing his brother’s girlfriend to death. Biberaj’s office dropped charges in an effort for the Loudoun County Circuit Court to declare Colburn mentally fit to stand trial. Biberaj said the district court was on the verge of committing him to a mental hospital.

Rome CNN — Italy will build two detention centers in Albania to house migrants trying to reach its shores, Prime Minister Georgia Meloni said Monday, in an attempt to control migration figures that have almost doubled in the year since she took office. Meloni said the facilities are due to open next spring and will initially take in 3,000 people. Once the centers are “fully up and running,” Meloni said her government could process up to 36,000 people a year. Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party is facing growing domestic pressure as it has failed to deliver on an electoral...

LIN (Albania) (AFP) – Beneath the turquoise waters of Lake Ohrid, the "Pearl of the Balkans", scientists have uncovered what may be one of Europe's earliest sedentary communities, and are trying to solve the mystery of why it sheltered behind a fortress of defensive spikes. A stretch of the Albanian shore of the lake once hosted a settlement of stilt houses some 8,000 years ago, archaeologists believe, making it the oldest lakeside village in Europe discovered to date. Radiocarbon dating from the site puts it at between 6000 and 5800 BC. "It is several hundred years older than previously known...

CNA Staff, Jul 5, 2023 / 15:10 pm Pope Francis met with former U.S. President Bill Clinton in a private audience at the Casa Santa Marta papal residence on Wednesday. Clinton’s delegation included several prominent Americans, including Alex Soros of the Open Society Foundations. Clinton, who now focuses his efforts on philanthropy and public affairs, had visited Albania July 3-4 and received from the Albanian prime minister a public gratitude medal for his support of Albania and for NATO's intervention in the Kosovo War, the news site Euractiv reports. Soros, son of the billionaire financier and philanthropist George Soros, accompanied...