Free Republic

21 Jan 2021 The United Kingdom is resisting a demand from the European Union that it grant full diplomatic status to the bloc’s ambassador in London, causing a row between the recently divorced parties that spilled out into the open on Thursday. The UK, an EU member for 47 years, voted to quit in 2016 and completed its tortuous journey out of the bloc on December 31, when Brexit fully took effect. The BBC reported that the Foreign Office was refusing to grant the same diplomatic status and privileges to EU ambassador Joao Vale de Almeida and his team as...

Mealworms may soon find their into Europe’s pasta bowls and dinner dishes, after becoming the first insect approved in the region as a human food. Wednesday’s (Jan 13) decision by the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) paves the way for the yellow grubs to be used whole and dried in curries and other recipes and as a flour to make biscuits, pasta and bread. Despite their name, mealworms are beetle larvae rather than worms and are already used in Europe as a pet food ingredient. Rich in protein, fat and fibre, they are likely to be the first of many...

In China, we are seeing forced televised confessions, a mass surveillance state, the killing of Falun Gong practitioners for their organs, and what many are calling a genocide of the Uyghur people. 83 global brands, including major U.S. companies, are tied to Uyghur forced labor in China. Over in Hong Kong, 53 pro-democracy activists, lawmakers, and lawyers were arrested on Jan. 6 under the draconian national security law. Despite all this, the EU recently announced a major trade deal with China. American Thought Leaders interviews human rights activist and writer Benedict Rogers, founder of Hong Kong Watch and deputy...

Political elites worldwide have criticized big tech companies for banning President Donald Trump from their social media platforms. At present, the president has been banned from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Snapchat, Reddit, and Instagram. Twitter permanently removed Trump’s account, saying that his recent posts were in violation of the “Glorification of Violence Policy.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel called Twitter’s ban on Trump “problematic,” and said that freedom of opinion is an essential right of “elementary significance,” her spokesperson, Steffen Siebert, said on Jan 11. “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers it “problematic” that Twitter would toss President Trump off its social media platform, saying through a spokesmen Monday that the president’s ability to express his opinion is a fundamental right of “elementary significance.” “This fundamental right can be intervened in, but according to the law and within the framework defined by legislators — not according to a decision by the management of social media platforms,” Merkel spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters in Berlin. “Seen from this angle, the chancellor considers it problematic that the accounts of the U.S. president have now been permanently blocked,” he...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel considers U.S. President Donald Trump’s eviction from Twitter by the company “problematic,” her spokesman said Monday. Twitter permanently suspended Trump from the microblogging platform on Friday, citing a “risk of further incitement of violence” in the wake of the storming of the U.S. Capitol by supporters of the outgoing president. Asked about Twitter’s decision, Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said the operators of social media platforms “bear great responsibility for political communication not being poisoned by hatred, by lies and by incitement to violence.” He said it’s right not to “stand back” when such content is posted,...

The European Union’s top diplomat said on Sunday that last week’s siege of the U.S. Capitol exposed the dangers of allowing the degradation of democratic values to go unchecked and disinformation to spread on social media.

European companies are expected to hunt for assets in China, mainly in insurance, healthcare and automobile sectors, after the world’s second-largest economy and the European Union agreed to an investment deal last month, lawyers and bankers say.

The European Union warned on Monday that Iran's move to enrich uranium to 20 per cent would be a "considerable departure" from Tehran's commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal. EU spokesman Peter Stano said Brussels would wait until a briefing from the director of the UN's IAEA nuclear watchdog later in the day before deciding what action to take. Earlier, an Iranian government spokesman said the Shahid Alimohammadi enrichment complex in Fordow had begun the "process for producing" uranium enriched to 20 percent. That would be well above the 3.67 percent cap set in the deal, known as the JCPOA,...

Viewers have slammed the BBC for 'forcing politics' into London's controversial New Year's Eve light show after 300 drones made the shape of a BLM fist and shone in EU colours over London's skies. Thousands of revellers eager to bid farewell to a miserable 2020 tuned into BBC One to watch the highly-anticipated pre-recorded display. But outraged Britons slammed the show as 'ridiculous' after the drones made the shape of a Black Lives Matter fist and a turtle with Africa on its shell - alongside the NHS logo and a depiction Captain Sir Tom Moore in the sky. The fist...

CALAIS, France (Reuters) - Moments after Britain completed its divorce with the European Union, the first trucks hauling goods across the new customs border presented their clearance documents to French agents before loading onto a train to pass through the Eurotunnel. A barcode on Romanian driver Toma Moise’s paperwork was scanned and approved in seconds. “The future, I don’t think it will be difficult,” he said in broken English before continuing his journey towards Britain. Cast as the dawn of a newly independent “global Britain”, its exit from the world’s biggest trading block means the return of customs formalities on...

Under no scenario would a unified European Union aligned with China be in the interest of America. Indeed, a united EU might not be a friend but a foe.Joseph Borrell, a former Spanish socialist and current High Representative of the European Union, recently argued the EU needs to be strategically independent. “It is foreseen that in 20 years, we [the EU] will not represent more than 11 percent of world GNP, far behind China, which will represent double it, below 14 percent for the United States and at par with India,” Borrell wrote, adding the next two decades would be...

EU member states gave political backing to Brussels’ planned investment pact with China on Monday, clearing the way for a deal between the world’s biggest economic blocs. At a meeting of ambassadors, the German EU presidency noted that no member had “raised a stop sign and the way for a political endorsement was thus cleared.” The diplomats noted “recent positive developments” in negotiations, with China reportedly addressing concerns over the alleged use of forced labour on its farms. This came after the Chinese foreign ministry said last week that “negotiations have entered the final stretch” — and a second EU...

Professor Neil Ferguson, an epidemiologist who played a key role in convincing the British government to adopt lockdowns, revealed that the country’s lockdowns were meant to emulate those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party – modeled to strip civil liberties and exert authoritarian control over citizens. In Ferguson’s recent interview with The Times, he revealed that lockdowns he championed as part of Britain’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) Board, were rooted in those carried out by the Chinese Communist Party. Dubbed “Professor Lockdown” by many for his contributions to swaying the British government to adopt stringent lockdown measures,...

Watch Bannon’s War Room 10 AM. I Am Unsure If It Will Be Live or Recorded. It Shows Up On America’s Voice Schedule For 10 AM.

Britain and the European Union struck a hard-fought trade agreement on Thursday, settling a bitter divorce that stretched over more than four years and setting the terms for a post-Brexit future as close neighbors living apart, according to British officials. The deal, which must be ratified by the British and European Parliaments, came together in Brussels after 11 months of grinding negotiations, culminating in a last-minute haggle over fishing rights that stretched into Christmas Eve, just a week before a year-end deadline. Despite running to thousands of pages, the agreement leaves critical parts of the relationship to be worked out...

@M_Veselinovic Massive, miles-long lorry queues on the approach to Dover seem to be a combo of Brexit stockpiling, xmas rush and Covid-19 backlog. But if it’s like this now, when there’s still free trade with EU, what’s it going to be like from Jan 1 if extra checks + paperwork is needed? Video...

The Court of Justice of the European Union, the EU's top court, has ruled that Hungary violated EU law when it prevented illegal immigrants from seeking asylum. The ruling paves the way for the European Commission, the EU's powerful administrative arm, to impose financial penalties over Hungary's restrictive immigration policies. The Hungarian government has vowed that it will not bow to pressure to jump aboard the EU's multicultural bandwagon.In its December 17 ruling, the court, informally known as European Court of Justice (ECJ) accused the Hungarian government of corralling migrants into so-called transit zones and of limiting their ability to...

Billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, a Leave campaigner in the run-up to the 2016 Brexit referendum, has confirmed a new 4x4 vehicle will be built in France. It ends hopes his Grenadier off-roader, based on the original Land Rover, would be made at a new plant in Wales. Those plans were put on hold in July while Mr Ratcliffe's Ineos Automotive negotiated buying Mercedes-Benz's Hambach site, in Moselle. He said on Tuesday that Hambach offered a "unique opportunity".

Britain said on Tuesday it would drop clauses in draft domestic legislation that breached the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement after it clinched a deal with the European Union over how to manage the Ireland-Northern Ireland border.