Free Republic

Germans might not know it, but they desperately need the moral guidance of a reinstated royal family, the great-great grandson of the last Kaiser, Prince Philip Kiril of Prussia, told The Local’s Jessica Ware in an exclusive interview. “Subconsciously, I think young Germans wants something they can orientate towards,” said Prince Philip. The 45-year-old father of six may work as a Protestant vicar, but he has become one of the loudest voices out of those who want to see Germany revive its monarchy. Since Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated in 1918, the country has been without a monarchy. But Prince Philip...

Italy’s Matteo Salvini warned Saturday that no NGO-operated ships carrying migrants would be allowed to dock at Italian ports. “Italy no longer wants to be an accomplice of human traffickers and contribute to the business of illegal immigration,” Matteo Salvini, who leads the far-right League, said in a Facebook post on Saturday. More than 600 migrants are expected to reach Italian shores on Saturday on board Italian, British and U.S. military ships, according to a statement by the Italian interior ministry cited by La Repubblica. Salvini’s post specifically targeted NGO-operated two ships flying Dutch flags — which he described as...

Donald Trump took to Twitter on Monday to fire off two tweets about the “tenuous” state of politics in Germany. Not for the first time, he showed his ignorance of developments in German society. Trump waded into the political crisis facing Chancellor Angela Merkel, declaring that the German people were “turning against their leadership” over immigration. “We don’t want what is happening with immigration in Europe to happen with us!” he said in a pair of tweets. “The people of Germany are turning against their leadership as migration is rocking the already tenuous Berlin coalition,” he said, adding that “crime...

Dr. Turley thinks the whole globalist dream is Humpty Dumpty – or at least, it soon could be ol’ HD: He seems to be saying that the German people’s rejection of open borders may well cause Mutti Merkel to be strapped into her rocking chair for a well-deserved rest. Further, if her coalition fails, then ultimately so does the globalist, multi-cultural project known as the Europe Union. Perhaps it’s too early to break out the champagne, but certainly, it’s time to order a bottle before supplies run out. Or maybe some Rhine wine would be more appropriate? Or, if you...

As Chancellor Angela Merkel fights to save her government in a heated battle over immigration, an opinion poll Friday showed most Germans support the tougher line of her rebel interior minister. The survey found that 62 percent of respondents were in favor of turning back undocumented migrants at the border, in line with the stance of Interior Minister Horst Seehofer, who is openly challenging Merkel. And 86 percent want faster deportations of rejected asylum seekers, a process now often held up by bureaucratic hurdles and legal challenges, according to the Infratest dimap poll. The survey turns up the pressure on...

Germany is set to miss its 2020 greenhouse gas emissions target by 8 percent, according to German weekly magazine Der Spiegel. The German government set itself the goal of reducing national greenhouse gas emissions until 2020 by 40 percent compared to 1990 levels, but a draft government report estimates that the country will only be able to reduce emissions by 32 percent. Officials had previously estimated a shortfall of 5 percent to 8 percent. The document blames “unexpected economic developments and unexpected population growth” for the failure to meet the target. Increased economic activity and strong population growth generally cause...

As many as 60 Turkish imams and their families face expulsion from Austria and seven mosques are due to be closed under a clampdown on what the government has called “political Islam”. Austria’s chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said the country could no longer put up with “parallel societies, political Islam and radicalisation,” which he said had “no place in our country”.

Following a major Spanish city’s vote to boycott Israel, the leader of Spain’s third-largest party called the Jewish state a “criminal country” during an interview aired by public television broadcaster. Pablo Iglesias Turrión, leader of the Podemos far-left party, said this in an interview earlier this week on RTVE. “We need to act more firmly on an illegal country like Israel,” said Iglesias Turrión, whose party in 2015 won 20 percent of the votes in the general election just one year after its creation. Last week, a motion promoted by a local fraction of Podemos on the city council of...

An Iraqi migrant suspected of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl in western Germany has been caught by Kurdish forces in Iraq, Germany’s Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said Friday, one day after German police issued an international warrant for his arrest. Ali Bashar, a 20-year-old asylum-seeker, was arrested in northern Iraq early Friday at Germany’s request, police said. He had fled from Germany to Iraq via Istanbul with his family on June 2. “I thank the participating Kurdish security forces for making the arrest possible,” Seehofer said. Susanna Maria Feldman, a resident in the western German city of...

<p>BERLIN (AFP) - Leading German politicianson Tuesday called for the US ambassador to be expelled, after the staunch ally of Donald Trump was accused of meddling in domestic politics and aggravating already tense ties.</p> <p>Richard Grenell had taken up his diplomatic posting in Berlin on May 8, and immediately irked Germany when he tweeted on the same day that German companies should stop doing business with Iran as Trump quit the nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.</p>

Parliament will vote on Monday over whether to build a 70 km long, 1.5 meter-high fence along Denmark’s border with Germany. The aim of the fence is to stop wild boar spreading the swine flu virus into Denmark, but environmental organizations have expressed doubts as to its effectiveness and concerns over its effect on local wildlife. The barrier is one of a number of proposals put forward by the Ministry for Food and the Environment aimed at preventing the African swine fever virus from spreading amongst Denmark’s large pig population. A majority consisting of the government and Danish People’s Party...

An Iraq court on Sunday sentenced a French woman to life in jail for membership of the Islamic State group as her lawyers accused authorities in Paris of “interference” to prevent her return to France. Melina Boughedir, a mother of four, was sentenced last February to seven months in prison for “illegal” entry into the country and was set to be deported back to France. But another court ordered the re-trial of the 27-year-old French citizen under Iraq’s anti-terrorist law and on Sunday she was found guilty of belonging to IS. “I am innocent,” Boughedir told the judge in French....

Israel has lodged an official protest to Ireland over the invitation of Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian plane hijacker who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, to speak at a teachers’ club in Dublin belonging to the Irish National Teachers’ Organization. Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan sent the protest letter to Dublin’s education minister, Richard Bruton, demanding that he cancel Khaled’s appearance, Hadashot TV reported Thursday. Khaled is scheduled to speak via video link in a public talk hosted at the club by the socialist groups Anti-Imperialist Action Ireland and Lasair Dhearg. “It is hard to understand why Ireland,...

The threat of terrorist attacks in France has put paid to fans’ hopes of watching the World Cup on big screens in public spaces, France’s ministry for the interior announced. “I remind all publicly-elected officials of the fact that ‘big screen’ zones are completely forbidden in public spaces,” said a statement from the ministry. France has been subject to several terrorist attacks in recent years, leading to an increased security presence all round.“In the current climate of terrorist threats, the security procedures used at the last European Championship must be deployed again, with the same degree of efficiency.” …

Chancellor Angela Merkel said Germany “urgently needed” extra affordable housing and used her weekly video podcast Saturday to reel off a series of steps — outlined last February as her coalition took shape — to get them built before the next federal elections in 2021. Simultaneously Saturday, the board chairman of Germany’s BA Labor Agency, Detlef Scheele, told Stuttgart-based SWR public broadcasting that affordable housing had become the “burning topic of our times.” More and more people were seeking second jobs to supplement their incomes, especially in Germany’s urban hubs, said Scheele Last year alone, Berlin property prices soared 20.5...

The Sweden Democrats, a far-right and anti-immigration party, have gained momentum and are close behind the nation’s two other largest parties ahead of the September 9th general election, according to a survey on Wednesday. Published by the daily Dagens Nyheter (DN), the Ipsos poll confirmed the Sweden Democrats’ soaring popularity in recent months and the decline in support for the leading Social Democrats, which has lost one-fourth of its voters since the 2014 election. With 20 percent in support, according to Ipsos, the far-right group is gaining on the conservative Moderates (22 percent) and is now only four points behind...

Berlin is “determined to do everything necessary” to preserve the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran despite the US pullout, Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said while meeting US lawmakers at the start of his visit to Washington. “We don’t want any proliferation of nuclear weapons in our extended neighborhood,” Maas stressed. Having a deal, according to Maas, is better than not having one, and fearing that Iran would restart its uranium enrichment program. […] Earlier this month, Maas sharply criticized the US stance on Iran, calling it a “disappointment.” He added that Berlin was willing to “fight for our interests...

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, responded on to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s speech on Iran, in which he vowed that Washington would impose unprecedented sanctions against Tehran following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. In a statement quoted by AFP, Mogherini warned that there is “no alternative” to the Iran nuclear deal. “Secretary Pompeo’s speech has not demonstrated how walking away from the JCPOA has made or will make the region safer from the threat of nuclear proliferation or how it puts us in a better position to influence Iran’s conduct in areas outside the...

Chancellor Angela Merkel visits China on Thursday, seeking to close ranks with the world’s biggest exporting nation as US President Donald Trump shakes up explosive issues from trade to Iran’s nuclear deal. Finding a common strategy to ward off a trade war and keep markets open will be Merkel’s priority when she meets with President Xi Jinping, as Washington brandishes the threat of imposing punitive tariffs on aluminium and steel imports. “Both countries are in agreement that open markets and rules-based world trade are necessary. That’s the main focus of this trip,” Merkel’s spokeswoman Martina Fietz said in Berlin on...

The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) was informed about possible improprieties in the approval of asylum applications at its branch in the northern city of Bremen earlier than it admitted, German media reported on Monday. The news magazine Der Spiegel reported that emails it had seen suggested that BAMF head Jutta Cordt had received internal information regarding “massive irregularities” in Bremen as early as February 2017. Broadcaster NDR and the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung also reported on internal emails allegedly showing that BAMF headquarters knew about questionable procedures at that time, but were reluctant to look into the matter....