Free Republic

Glyphosate-based formulations (GBFs), such as Roundup, are the most heavily used herbicides in the world. In 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) concluded that glyphosate and GBFs are probably carcinogenic to humans, mainly for non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL)... In 2021, the French Institute of Health and Medical Research... also found that many studies demonstrated genotoxic damage (DNA breaks or structural changes) consistent with the induction of oxidative stress by glyphosate/GBFs, sometimes at exposure levels experienced by human populations... In a recent study of Thai farmers, a high frequency (97.6%) of those spraying GBFs with backpack sprayers had high...

European security services are investigating suspected Iran-linked attacks on synagogues, Israeli sites, and opposition groups. Germany’s domestic intelligence agency has warned that Iran could expand covert operations across Europe once fighting with the U.S. and Israel subsides, raising fears of attacks on Jewish targets, Israeli institutions, and opponents of the Tehran regime. The Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV) said Iranian dissidents and other individuals regarded by Tehran as “traitors” would face particular danger if the regime increases its intelligence and proxy activities across the continent. One BfV official told Euractiv that the service is monitoring individuals based in Germany who have...

Iran said on Saturday (Oct 18) that it was no longer bound by restrictions on its nuclear programme as a landmark 10-year deal between it and world powers expired, though Tehran reiterated its "commitment to diplomacy". The 2015 deal - signed in Vienna by Iran, China, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and the United States - saw the lifting of international sanctions against the Islamic republic in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear programme. But the pact had already been in tatters after Washington unilaterally withdrew during President Donald Trump's first term, with Iran later pulling back from its commitment. The...

The EU assumes the truth of an ideology that most Hungarians—and millions of other Europeans—reject. On April 21, just nine days after Viktor Orban’s electoral defeat in the Hungarian parliamentary elections, the Court of Justice of the European Union delivered its ruling in Commission v. Hungary, decreeing that Hungary’s 2021 Child Protection Law prohibiting the exposure of minors to LGBT propaganda is in violation of EU law and core values. Sixteen member states joined the EU Parliament in the case against Hungary, and so the outcome was, in many ways, foreordained. Mark Rutte—then prime minister of the Netherlands, now secretary...

On Monday, the European Union announced sanctions on Israelis, including Daniella Weiss, the 80-year-old former mayor of a Jewish community in Judea and Samaria, and on Tuesday, it invited the Taliban, an Islamic terrorist group allied with Al Qaeda, to come to Brussels for talks. “Extremisms and violence carry consequences,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned Israel. Obviously. And the consequence of extremism and violence is an invite to Brussels.At least if you’re a Muslim terrorist. Over the last decade, Islamic terrorists associated with ISIS, an Al Qaeda splinter group, have killed over 34 people in two bombing, four...

European negotiators agreed late on Tuesday to implement the controversial trade agreement concluded last summer with the US. However, the deal — signed in the Scottish city of Turnberry — remains fragile as long as US President Donald Trump continues to use tariffs as a tool of political pressure. Diplomats and MEPs reached an agreement late on Tuesday to implement the contentious EU-US agreement, which eliminates duties on most US industrial goods imported into Europe. The negotiations concluded two weeks after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose 25% tariffs on EU cars if Europeans did not implement the agreement...

Sweden, together with the European Commission, will hold talks with the Taliban. The goal is to enable deportations to Afghanistan - but the announcement is being criticized. "A deal with extremists," says Annika Hirvonen (MP). Migration Minister Johan Forssell (M) tells TT that the Swedish government has been "very proactive" in the EU on securing deportations to Afghanistan. The issue of being able to carry out more criminal deportations, i.e. of people who have been convicted of crimes in Sweden or who pose a threat to Sweden's security, is one of my most important priorities, he says. According to Forssell,...

President Donald Trump has said he will give the European Union until July 4 to ratify its trade agreement with the U.S., threatening to raise tariffs to “much higher” levels if the 27-nation bloc fails to do so. In a post on Truth Social late Thursday, Trump issued a new trade deadline during a “great call” with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, one in which he said both leaders agreed Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon. The conversation took place shortly after the U.S. president pledged to raise tariffs on cars and trucks imported from the EU...

President Trump announced Friday he would soon raise tariffs to 25% on vehicles imported from the European Union, claiming the bloc was non-compliant with its US trade deal. “I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” he said in a post to Truth Social. Companies that build vehicles in the United States will be exempt from the tariff, he added. “Many Automobile and Truck...

The resolution aimed at introducing the concept of consent into rape legislation in the 27 member states of the European Union was adopted on Tuesday by a large majority – with 447 votes in favour, 160 against and 43 abstentions. The text urges that "only a clear, affirmative, freely given and unambiguous indication of consent is valid" in sexual relations. It adds that "silence, a lack of verbal or physical resistance or the absence of a ‘no’ cannot be interpreted as consent". Any sexual act outside this framework, it says, should be considered rape. The text also stresses that prior...

The European Court of Justice has ruled that Hungary’s amended Child Protection Law violates EU law and discriminates against gay and transgender people. It is the first time the court has found that an EU member state breached the fundamental values set out in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. The law was pushed by Viktor Orbán in a referendum coinciding with a general election vote. At the time, the law faced accusations that it unfairly criminalised gay men as pedophiles. The ruling on Tuesday comes nine days after Hungary’s parliamentary elections, in which the opposition Tisza Party defeated Orbán’s...

What started out as a plan for a common market evolved has matured into a central planner’s paradise with all the associated problems that once gripped the Soviet Union. The European Union is essentially the project of a bureaucratic elite, and is undemocratic at its core. It was designed, from its inception, to wrest power from the democratic institutions of individual European members and vest it within the EU bureaucracy. In recent decades, it has taken on a hideous form with the embrace of climate eschatology and destruction of industry in the name of net-zero. Even worse, it has promoted...

From Wikimedia Commons: A market scene on the Grand Place in Brussels (unknown artist, ca. 1670)Modern Brussels narrates the tragedy of a continent in terminal decline. Once a monument to European civilization—listing such landmarks as the medieval Grand-Place, the Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula, the neoclassical Palais de Justice—it has been transmogrified into a laboratory of “super-diversity,” a doomsday phenomenon whose presiding ideology is this: abolition of the Christian nation-state. Hosting representatives of 184 nationalities, the city does not merely reflect globalization; it weaponizes it. Beneath the bureaucratic gloss of the EU’s institutions lies a parallel reality of...

Excerpt - Three Italian women were brutally attacked while on a surfing holiday at a Cape Verde resort island, dragged into the woods, and left for dead at the bottom of a hole, according to the single survivor who recounted the tragedy yesterday. When she came to, the teenager said, she crawled out of the hole and went for help. The two women with her, aged 28 and 33, had been stoned to death. The story of the attack, which occurred on Friday, has shocked Italians, many of whom consider the islands of the west coast of Africa to be...

Nearly three in five Canadians support the idea of Canada joining the European Union, a new poll suggests. A Nanos Research survey conducted for The Globe and Mail shows that 57 per cent of respondents would either support (28 per cent) or somewhat support (29 per cent) Canada becoming a full member of the EU. The results also show that 32 per cent of respondents were either opposed or somewhat opposed to the idea, while 12 per cent were unsure. The results follow similar findings from a Spark Advocacy poll conducted in March, suggesting that one in four respondents thought...

Finnish President Alexander Stubb says he exchanges messages with Prime Minister Mark Carney almost every day. Stubb is in Ottawa for his first official bilateral meetings with Canada's prime minister. The pair are working to develop trade and defence ties, according to Carney's office. "With shared interests, values and a commitment to international security, I look forward to hosting President Stubb to deepen our partnership to create stability, security and prosperity for both our peoples," Carney wrote in a statement. "With shared interests, values and a commitment to international security, I look forward to hosting President Stubb to deepen our...

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán speaks during a press conference next to President of the European Council António Costa (C) and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen (R) following the European Council meeting at the EU headquarters in Brussels on December 19, 2024. “What bothers Brussels is not just that Hungary stands out, but that this alternative could become popular among a majority of Europeans over time.” Zoltán Kiszelly is a Hungarian political analyst currently serving as Director of the Center for Political Analysis at the Budapest-based Századvég Foundation. We talked to him about the Hungarian elections...

IRANA, Albania (AP) — Albania's main opposition Democratic Party made a criminal complaint against Prime Minister Edi Rama Monday, accusing him of illegally funneling $80,000 to U.S. President Barack Obama's re-election campaign in 2012 in return for a photograph of the two men together. The Democrats brought the case to the Prosecutor General's office, saying Rama — who was then the opposition leader — paid the money in violation of U.S. and Albanian laws to gain access to a campaign event in San Francisco in October 2012. Last week Bilal Shehu, 48, a U.S. citizen of Albanian origin, pleaded guilty...

JD Vance will visit Hungary on Tuesday in an 11th-hour attempt to boost key MAGA ally Prime Minister Viktor Orbán before an all-important election on Sunday, but the U.S. vice president’s trip appears unlikely to swing an increasingly bitter race. Orbán says he is “looking forward” to Vance’s trip, and with a Budapest press conference and a flag-waving rally at a 24,000-seat football stadium on Tuesday will be attempting to seize what momentum he can from it. For the Hungarian prime minister it’s a singular opportunity to portray himself as the Trump administration’s pre-eminent European ally. For the White House,...

Liz Churchill @liz_churchill10·17m “Do they even belong in the European Union?!” SLOVAKIA JOINS HUNGARY IN THE EU REBELLION. Slovakia just went FULL FORCE against Zelensky’s Ukraine…calling them out for BLOWING UP Nord Stream and THREATENING anyone who opposes them. The GLOBALIST War Lords are COLLAPSING