Free Republic

At a Spanish port 50 miles northwest of Gibraltar, four Turkish Navy ships, including a brand-new amphibious assault ship that doubles as an aircraft carrier, were set to arrive Friday to take part in NATO military exercises. Heavy winds had delayed the Turkish vessels, but once they dock at the Spanish Navy port, they will form a fleet with Spanish ships, sail around the continent and rendezvous with French, German, Polish and Dutch vessels. They will then travel to Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, bringing tanks, landing craft, helicopters, drones and troops from southern Europe to northern Germany. About 10,000 troops...

The war in Ukraine has escalated, with Russia issuing increasing dire threats against Kyiv and its supporters. President-elect Donald J. Trump is set to take office in the United States, raising new questions over Europeans’ trade relations and military defense. The government of France — Germany’s partner in leading Europe — fell earlier this month.And now, Europe’s largest economy will be in the hands of a caretaker government, ahead of elections early next year.On Monday, German lawmakers voted to dissolve the existing government by a vote of 394 to 207, with 116 abstaining.Coming just nine months before parliamentary elections had...

For months, die-hard environmental activists have camped in the fields and occupied the trees in this tiny farming village in western Germany, hoping that like-minded people from across the country would arrive and help stop the expansion of a nearby open-pit coal mine that threatened to swallow the village and its farms. But the hoped-for surge in protesters never materialized. And last week, the government effectively sealed Lützerath’s fate by announcing that RWE, Germany’s largest energy company, needed the coal under the village — to make up for gas that had stopped flowing in from Russia. The war in Ukraine,...