Free Republic

Britain's welfare budget is to be capped at around £120billion-a-year to stop the benefits bill ballooning out of control. Chancellor George Osborne wants to limit the total amount the state spends on handouts, with ministers forced to face a Commons vote if costs spiral. Only pensions and Jobseekers Allowance will be excluded, meaning a raft of payments including pensioner benefits, income support, maternity pay and most housing benefit could be in the firing line. Mr Osborne argues that under Labour spending on benefits was 'out of control', with the number of people who have never worked doubling in a decade....

This is abridged from the original stories in Die Welt. The Jenke Experiment is a television program currently on Radio Television Luxemburg (RTL).A reality programme it stars a reporter called Jenke von Wilmsdorff and follows him as he tackles life's major issues using himself as a guinea pig. In a recent program termed The Alcohol Experiment: follows the dedicated RTL reporter in his impressive experiment on alcohol addiction that brings the reporter mentally and physically to his limits, even the attending physician ordered him to abort the experiment. He drank alcohol for four weeks,daily, in order to test how the...

The Shia Justice Minister Hassan al-Schimari has submitted the draft amendment of the Family Law practice. In the cabinet, it was already approved with 21 of 29 votes and will now be submitted to Parliament. The law comes into force on the 30th.of April. The amendment is termed the Jaafari-law The name refers to the sixth Shiite Imam al-Sadiq Ds,chaafar (702-765), whose jurisdiction was the basis of the template. Special feature: It is a new law exclusively to govern the family relationships of the Shiites in the country. Men could marry girls as young as nine years then on, the...

One of the cases affected by the expulsion of Belgium is the Donaire Fatima (Jaén, 1984), Bachelor of Fine Arts, who came to Belgium in November 2010 to practice for five months in a graphic design studio, a scholarship program Eurydice. When the fellowship ended, Donaire told Efe that decided to stay in Belgium to learn French and find work. At the same time, asked one of the social assistance in Belgium to people who do not have sufficient resources are granted and that allowed him to receive 525 euros a month to pay for accommodation. During a year, the...

For the America which is well aware that sometimes in life you get beaten up by someone on the street, two things are clear. Firstly, instead of being surprised and naively trying to change the world, you have to equip yourself with a shotgun. Secondly, if the Republicans were in power right now, things would look completely different. Did Mitt Romney not point to Russia, saying that it is the biggest threat to the U.S.? He was not wrong! Did Sarah Palin err when she fired off that comment in 2008, saying that if Obama became president, Russia would invade...

On the evening of March 1, more than 10 disguised and masked thugs armed with knives stabbed innocent people at Yunnan Kunming Train Station, causing 29 deaths and over 100 injuries. These violent terrorist attacks were made by offenders acting against humanity and society, showing a brutal anti-social nature that makes them truly terrorists. However, reports from news agencies like the U.S. Cable News Network (CNN), the Associated Press, The New York Times, the Washington Post and other Western news agencies were cynical, logically confused and may have even had ulterior motives. These media agencies have been very loud about...

Major benefit cheats are to have their assets seized by bailiffs as part of a new crackdown on the £1.2 billion scandal. The Department of Work and Pensions is to use new powers to access the credit rating references of fraudsters to target their cars, computers, state-of-the-art TVs and other high value items. Sources said the new access would allow officials to target those with valuable assets. The spokesman said: ‘Getting the welfare budget under control is a key part of our long-term plan for the economy. We want to end the something for nothing culture and deliver for people...

THE sight of Ukraine’s corrupt leadership taking to the skies in private jets has finally focused attention on how the oligarchy led by former president Viktor Yanukovych looted the country for so long, necessitating the bail-out that Europe’s taxpayers will be asked to pay for. Before complaining too loudly, though, we might ask how our own leaders allowed it to happen. The Eye first reported the staggering scale of corruption routed through UK “limited liability partnerships” (LLPs) in 2012, documenting the millions flowing out of Ukraine, usually via Latvian and Austrian banks. These corporate vehicles were created by the last...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) official who apologized for targeting conservative nonprofit groups for extra scrutiny is married to an attorney whose firm hosted a voter registration organizing event for the Obama presidential campaign, praised President Obama’s policy work, and had one of its partners appointed by Obama to a key ambassadorship. IRS Exempt Organizations Division director Lois G. Lerner, who has been described as “apolitical” in mainstream press coverage of the IRS scandal, is married to tax attorney Michael R. Miles, a partner at the law firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan. The firm is based in Atlanta but has...

"Special Operations Center Moscow police ready to form a battalion of fighters" Berkut ", have issued Russian citizenship and willing to serve in the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs" - leads the Itar-Tass news service GU MVD of Russia in Moscow. March 1 Consulate General of Russia in Sebastropol first Russian passports issued to employees of Special Forces "Berkut". Russian citizenship six people.

In the shops in Washington that sell political objects, the best-selling item is a small digital clock that counts Obama’s remaining hours as president of the United States. Fifty-seven percent of Americans are unsatisfied with his work as head of the White House. His popularity ratings are comparable to those of George W. Bush in his saddest stages. Has Obama really been such a bad president? The first black head of state in the history of the United States has had two great difficulties he has been unable to overcome. The first was the expectations people had about him: a...

These are the two ‘petite’ firearms officers set to receive payouts of £35,000 each after complaining their guns were too big for their small hands. Pictured for the first time, Victoria Wheatley and Rachael Giles won a sex discrimination case on the grounds they could not reach the trigger. Both claimed their reputations were damaged because their unsuitable equipment - a Glock 17 - meant they received lower marks than men in firing range tests. They also said protective gear was too big for their small heads and legs and they were too short for a wooden barricade used as...

Those in authority become weary of perpetual demands for cash from worthy causes. They include the Head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Archbishop Vincent Nichols. So you would think Nichols might understand why the Coalition government, which is faced with a public sector net debt of over £1.2 trillion, has been pressing ahead with its plans to reform and if possible reduce the welfare bill. Not a bit of it: in an interview over the weekend, marking the Vatican’s announcement that he was to be made a cardinal, Nichols, while accepting the need for savings, said it...

One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming. Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual. Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has...

The coalition is overseeing the biggest reduction in Britain’s vast public sector workforce for half a century, and will have slashed one in five jobs by the time austerity is due to come to an end, a report says today. The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) says employment by the state will fall by 1.1 million, or 19 per cent, by 2018-19 compared with when George Osborne entered the Treasury in 2010. But in a significant endorsement of the Government’s plan to re-balance the economy in favor of the private sector, it concludes that a ‘buoyant’ jobs market means that...

European Elections on the 25 May 2014. That the National Front exceeds the UMP and the PS becomes the largest party in France. This scenario has been advanced for the second time in a poll on Sunday. This survey FIFG for JDD credited with 23% of the vote the National Front. A higher score to 17.9% of Marine Le Pen in the presidential 2012. The UMP (21%) and PS (18%) totals are exceeded, but according to the pollster, none of the three parties is assured of his place on the podium, taking into account the margin of error, estimated at...

You may want to be more careful on future trips to other EU countries. Today, parliament is expect to abolish the public travel insurance provided by the yellow health insurance card. According to DR Nyheder, a large majority will vote in favour of the bill, which then will come into effect by August. When the proposal is passed, Danish residents will no longer have all their medical expenses paid when visiting another EU country. Instead they will fall under the same regulations as citizens of the respective country. To avoid unexpected medical bills on your next holiday in Europe, it...

This coming Monday (17.02.2014), EU trade chief Karel de Gucht and his US counterpart Michael Froman are scheduled to meet in Washington to discuss the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a transatlantic free trade area. They are expected to make a political assessment of the past three rounds of US-EU trade talks and to discuss the upcoming fourth round of negotiations in March. The pact would unify standards and licensing procedures across a EU-US trade zone and would waive tariffs on goods traded between the EU and the US. According to the Munich-based IFO institute, the treaty will create...

As well as the baguette marinara(French loaf),the beret remains one of the most famous of French symbols abroad. Now production of these" Made in France " headgear is based on the shoulders of a small family business established since 1840 to Oloron. Laulhère has indeed acquired berets Blancq-Olibet, its historic rival established in 1819 and located 40 miles away, to Baudreix the heart of the Béarn. "The acquisition was natural because there was no room for two major and historical actors in the sector beret says René Renda, manage Laulhère. Now, we are the last to control the manufacturing process...

In my last column, I discussed the difficulties of distinguishing between right and left in Sweden’s election politics, at least when it comes to the Social Democrats. The example I used is how the party recently promised to cut the scope of the Swedish central government by 10 billion kronor ($1.5 billion). But it doesn’t stop there. The Social Democrats have gone from challenging the scope of government bureaucracy to criticizing over utilization of the social safety net. The Social Democrats in the capital region of Stockholm recently published a "Contract for the future – for the Stockholm region". The...