Free Republic

Thousands of protesters gathered in Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic, to protest new COVID-19 restrictions aimed at combatting the spread of the new omicron variant. Among other things, the Czech government banned the popular Christmas markets and any public consumption of alcohol, such as mulled wine, which Czechs and visitors often drink at such markets.

President Joe Biden flies off Thursday to attend global summits in two European cities. After he climbs the steps of Air Force One he will stop, turn and wave goodbye to a Democratic party scrambling to deliver a roughly $2 trillion spending package and a nation troubled by a host of domestic issues. First stop is Rome for a G-20 summit and then its on to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference, personal commitments by a president for whom a visit to the U.S.-Mexico border is just one journey too many.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday said the U.S. is partly to blame for the gas shortages Europe is currently facing. Putin, during an interview with CNBC at the annual Russian Energy Week, said that while European countries bear part of the blame for the gas shortages, the U.S.’s decrease in supplies has been “the cause of panic.” “You see the problem does not consist in us, it consists in the European side, because, first, we know that the wind farms did not work during summer because of the weather, everyone knows that. Moreover, the Europeans did not pump enough...

Billionaire philanthropist George Soros has predicted that coronavirus could bring about the end of the EU. Soros expressed his doubts about the institution’s survival as it is an “incomplete union” and cited Germany’s ruling on the European Central Bank as a cause for concern. The 89-year-old also posited that the global pandemic could bring an end to capitalism as we know it.In an interview with the Independent, Soros said: “I am particularly concerned about the survival of the EU because it is an incomplete union.” According to Soros, this makes Europe “more vulnerable” than the US “not just because it...

In 2016, the Commonwealth established a Climate Finance Access Hub, based in Mauritius, and providing regional services as well. The hub helps small and vulnerable countries access international sources of climate finance, has already assisted the financing of several projects in smaller countries, and is there to provide capacity development, knowledge management, and technical expertise. The idea of the hub is excellent, but the ambition clearly needs to be much greater to tackle climate change on a much wider basis with increased support. The climate emergency is predicted to have a major effect on many Commonwealth nations, plus likely huge...

French conservative Les Républicains leader Laurent Wauquiez is set to name hardliner François-Xavier Bellamy to lead his party’s list for May European elections. The nod has been criticised within the party for pushing LR yet further to the right. Unknown to the general public, the 33-year-old Bellamy is an unabashed conservative and a rising star in French conservative circles. A deputy mayor of Versailles since 2008, the young philosophy professor has authored two remarked-upon book-length essays. He notably also took part in the inception of Sens Commun, a political movement that grew out of the Manif Pour Tous anti-gay-marriage rallies...

European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker has changed the rules governing the political activity of European Union Commissioners, allowing them to actively campaign in the upcoming EU Parliament elections. Formerly the EU Commission, an unelected body which acts as the bloc’s executive and is the sole initiator of EU-level laws, was regarded as technocratic rather than overtly political, and not supposed to take partisan political stances of its own volition — at least in theory. But the new rules will allow the Commission to campaign with, endorse, and support candidates and parties ahead of the European Parliament elections set to be...

Former ECHR Judge and CHP Izmir MP Riza Turmen stressed that Turkey is obliged to comply with the ECHR’s Demirtas ruling. Former ECHR Judge and CHP (Republican People's Party) Izmir MP Riza Turmen stressed that Turkey is obliged to comply with the ECHR’s Demirtas ruling. Riza Turmen called for compliance with the European Court of Human Rights ruling and stressed that Selahattin Demirtas should be released without delays. Turmen stated that noncompliance with the ruling, which references Article 18 of the European Convention on Human Rights and poses a precedent for other political prisoners, will be the confirmation that Demirtas’s...

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Tuesday said that Turkey is not bound by verdicts of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) following the court’s decision calling for the release of Kurdish leader Selahattin Demirtaş from a lengthy pre-trial detention. “ECtHR decisions do not bind us. Up until now, most of the decisions about the organization [Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)] have been negative. There is a lot to be done in reaction [to the verdict]. We will take steps in response and finish the case. Terrorism continues,” Erdoğan said in parliament after the ruling. The ECtHR on Tuesday urged Turkey...

There's No Racist Like A Liberal Racist. Europe is currently getting bombarded with Muslim refugees. Brit Pat Condell gives us his enlightened view on anti-white racism as only Professive Libs can deliver it.

Let me now begin with a striking passage from Niall Ferguson's recent book, Civilization. In it he tells of how the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences was given the task of discovering how the West, having lagged behind China for centuries, eventually overtook it and established itself in a position of world pre-eminence. At first, said the scholar, we thought it was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we concluded it was because you had the best political system. Then we realised it was your economic system. "But in the past 20 years, we have realised...

European leaders may be scratching their heads because they've never seen anyone like President Donald Trump, CNBC's Jim Cramer said Thursday. "Whatever the Europeans are doing, they are confused because they've never seen anything like this president," Cramer added on "Squawk on the Street." "They are so over their heads versus this guy."

Two European cyclists found dead in a Mexican ravine may have been murdered, investigators say, discarding their earlier claims the men had fallen while riding. The pair – Holger Hagenbusch of Germany and Krzysztof Chmielewski from Poland – had been travelling around the world on their bikes. They were found dead at the foot of a rock face in the southern state of Chiapas. Investigators initially said the pair appeared to have lost control on a winding mountain road. But after it emerged that Chmielewski had suffered a gunshot wound and appeared to have had a foot chopped off, a...

... but hardly in the way that European elites claim. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center European Commission First Vice-President Frans Timmermans recently chaired a roundtable with ten Muslim imams from six EU Member States (Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy and The Netherlands).  Afterwards Timmermans announced that “the Commission is strongly committed to promoting diversity in Europe. Islam is part of our history, Islam is part of our present and Islam will be part of our future.”  Such assertions are as true as the assumptions they are based on—and whether such assumptions are grounded...

The Leftist-Liberal demographic engineering project of the European Union violates the rights of indigenous European peoples, goes against global trends towards the territorial partition of ethnic groups, and contradicts expert research on conditions that create ethnic and political conflict. The continuous practice of settling large numbers of non-Europeans into regions already inhabited by European indigenous populations but who have very low fertility rates inevitably alters the ethnic compositions of European nation-states, renders Europeans demographic minorities in their own homelands, affects the distribution of political power and the relations between ethnic groups, and causes a variety of other conflicts and problems,...

Austria is joining forces with 15 other Eastern European countries to stem the flow of migrants northwards, as they believe the European Union (EU) has failed in its duty to protect the region’s borders. Under the banner of the Balkan Frontier Defence Project, the countries will ensure that their police and military forces are in constant contact to ensure the vigilant protection of the national borders northwards of Greece, and repelling illegal immigrants from those borders. Austrian Defence Minister Hans-Peter Doskozil (SPÖ), told Die Welt: “We do not believe that the EU’s external borders are adequately protected so far by...

A truck has ploughed into a Christmas market in western Berlin injuring several people, local media reported, citing police. “Police confirm that a truck ploughed into a Christmas market at Breitscheidplatz in Berlin-Charlottenburg,” local newspaper Berlin Zeitung stated.

Europe's ExoMars lander apparently crashed on the Red Planet, and an orbiting NASA spacecraft has spotted its grave, European Space Agency (ESA) officials said. The lander, named Schiaparelli, stopped communicating with mission control about 1 minute before its planned touchdown on Mars Wednesday morning (Oct. 19). Newly released photos of the landing site by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) seem to confirm what ExoMars team members had suspected — that Schiaparelli died a violent death. The photos show a bright feature consistent with the lander's 39-foot-wide (12 meters) parachute, as well as a 50-by-130-foot (15 by 40 m) dark patch...

May America lead the way on November 8th. As Europeans assess the fallout from the U.K.’s Brexit referendum, they face a series of elections that could equally shake the political establishment. In the coming 12 months, four of Europe’s five largest economies have votes that will almost certainly mean serious gains for right-wing populists and nationalists. Once seen as fringe groups, France’s National Front, Italy’s Five Star Movement, and the Freedom Party in the Netherlands have attracted legions of followers by tapping discontent over immigration, terrorism, and feeble economic performance. “The Netherlands should again become a country of and for...

in 1944, 14-year-old George Soros went to work for the invading Nazis.. until the end of the war .. he worked with a government official, helping him confiscate property from the local Jewish population. In an 1998 interview with 60 Minutes, Soros described the year of German occupation as “the happiest time in my life.” ... Soros also uses his Open Society Foundations to funnel money to the progressive media outlet, Media Matters. Soros funnels the money through a number of leftist groups, including the Tides Foundation, Center for American Progress, and the Democracy Alliance in order to circumvent the...