Free Republic

It’s frightening enough to see full-blown totalitarianism return in Germany, but worse is knowing that it’s happening across the West, including in America. Germany’s Bundestag police commissioner, Uli Grötsch, is trying his best to rid his police force of members of the conservative Alternative for Germany (AfD) party. Grötsch, himself a member of the left-leaning Social Democratic Party (SPD), is tasked with overseeing police misconduct, but instead is using his position specifically to target supporters of the AfD to disqualify them from serving in law enforcement. Speaking to the Rheinische Post, Grötsch flatly stated: “AfD membership and work as a...

As an openly gay politician who lives with her Sri Lanka-born partner in Switzerland, Alice Weidel was an unusual choice to many to lead Germany’s far-right AfD into Sunday’s elections, where it scored its best-ever result. To her legions of political foes, Weidel serves as a “fig leaf” for a party that has railed against asylum seekers, Islam and multiculturalism and some of whose top figures have voiced revisionist views on Germany’s Nazi past. On Sunday the 46-year-old, who says Margaret Thatcher is her political idol, led the Moscow-friendly AfD to a record result of around 20 percent. She told...

At a time when Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) has emerged as the most popular political force in the country, overtaking even the traditional parties that have governed for decades, Germany’s state apparatus—together with allied cultural and media organisations—is intensifying efforts to isolate and discredit it. The latest example comes from Berlin, where the Haus der Kulturen der Welt, a taxpayer-funded cultural institution, will in September host the ‘heimaten Festival für die plurale Demokratie’ (‘Festival for Plural Democracy’) an event with a distinctly ideological tone aimed at countering the populist right. Organised under the authority of Minister for Culture Wolfram Weimer...

Former President Mary Robinson has condemned what she called “ridiculous”, “nonsense” and “malicious lying” regarding Israeli claims that it is ready to distribute aid into Gaza. Mrs. Robinson said that Israeli claims that UN agencies are not working quickly enough to distribute aid are “all ridiculous”. “We saw the most there was incredible collaboration between the Egyptian Red Crescent… and the UN,” she said, after a visit to Egypt and the Rafah crossing alongside former New Zealand president Helen Clark. Following the visit, Mrs. Robinson said that targeted sanctions should be imposed on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and all...

President Trump on Wednesday suggested that he was powerless to control President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia ahead of a planned meeting on Friday in Alaska, saying he could not convince the Russians to stop killing Ukrainian civilians or hacking American court records. Mr. Trump did warn of “severe consequences” if Mr. Putin did not agree to abandon his grueling invasion of Ukraine during their discussion, scheduled to be held at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage. But Mr. Trump was dismissive when asked to address matters of national security and the horrors of war, raising questions about whether he has...

. . . Yet Zelenskyy’s fatal political error is negotiating for total victory as if it were already won. It isn’t. You don’t demand unconditional surrender when you lack the power to enforce it—and the wider the gap between rhetoric and reality, the sooner Ukraine risks the very outcome it claims to prevent: the loss of its statehood, on Russian terms. That delusion persists in Washington, kept alive by voices from the Biden-Blinken school of foreign policy romanticism—still peddling the fairy tale: one more tranche, one more package, one more spring. In reality, it buys Ukraine’s destruction—its soldiers bled out,...

A concept design of the Strait of Messina Bridge (Ponte Stretto Messina) between Sicily and mainland Italy. Image credit: WeBuild Group ================================================================= Italy's long-standing dream to build the world’s longest suspension bridge between the mainland and the island of Sicily has just moved one step closer to becoming reality. On August 6, the Italian government gave its final approval to build the Strait of Messina Bridge (Ponte sullo Stretto di Messina) between Sicily to the southern region of Calabria on the tip of Italy's boot. Costing an estimated €13.5 billion ($15.8 billion), the bridge is planned to stretch 3,300 meters...

Friedrich Merz knows how important uncontrolled mass migration was at the last election, so has promised to crackdown on the vast pull factors encouraging people to move to Germany. Yet much like his pledge to get a grip of illegal migration, this alleged crackdown appears to consist far more of rhetoric than of action. As such, Germany’s Federal Employment Agency is actively promoting Bürgergeld—the citizens’ benefit paid to those with no income or who do not earn enough money to support themselves—to young migrants. A page on its website is written in English “for people from abroad,” and leads with...

Russia is preparing its troops for new offensives instead of getting ready to stop the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, ahead of talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. “[Putin] is certainly not getting ready for a ceasefire and war end,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address. He added, without providing specifics, that Russia was moving its troops for new operations on Ukrainian soil. “There is no sign that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a postwar situation.”

President Donald Trump suggested ahead of a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this week that Ukraine could cede land to Russia as part of a peace deal — an idea that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky swiftly rejected.“Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier,” Zelensky said in a video address Saturday. The leaders of Britain and the European Union threw their support behind Ukraine’s president, saying a ceasefire must come before any negotiations.Trump had said that “some swapping of territories” could be “to the betterment” of both sides.Ukraine is a vast Eastern European country, covering about...

Not for the first time, European capitals are gripped with apprehension that Russian President Vladimir Putin will surgically divide the transatlantic alliance as well as get everything he wants in Ukraine.Ahead of the suddenly announced summit in Alaska on Friday between Putin and US President Donald Trump, one European diplomat, who declined to be named as they were not authorized to speak on the record, told CNN: “We are at risk of being a footnote in history.”In part, European fears are down to just how little is known about what the Kremlin has proposed in order to halt the fighting...

Ireland’s 40-year-long era of burning coal — the dirtiest fossil fuel imaginable — to generate electricity came to an end in June. That was when ESB announced it had ceased burning coal at its Moneypoint power station in County Clare, six months ahead of schedule. Throughout those 40 years, the coal was transferred on noisy conveyer belts through what must surely have been the longest, ugliest, sequence of brown tunnels in the country. They ran from the jetty at Moneypoint, where the coal ships pulled up, to a huge coal storage yard and then right into the powerplant and furnaces...

U2 frontman Bono has said in a statement that he feels “revulsion” for the “moral failure” in Gaza, adding that he has tried to “stay out of the politics of the Middle East”. The singer, who had been criticized for not speaking publicly about Gaza, and his decision to accept the Medal of Freedom from then-US President Joe Biden earlier this year, said in the statement that his lack of commentary came from “uncertainty in the face of obvious complexity”. He said that “Israel’s revenge for the Hamas attack appeared more and more disproportionate and disinterested in the equally innocent...

Ursula's new "European Media Freedom Act" permits the arrest of journalists if it is in the "public interest." ... The act also allows surveillance software to be deployed on devices used by media service providers, editorial staff, or related persons in the “public interest. Who decides the “public interest?” Sophie ... The new law also contains numerous provisions that call for action against alleged "disinformation." Ursula von der Leyen, EU Commission President ... "national lists" are to be created listing the owners and addresses of media outlets, as stipulated in Article 6. Despite its intent to strengthen media freedom, critics...

A 47-year-old Moroccan man has been arrested in Paris for lighting a cigarette using the Eternal Flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau confirmed the arrest calling the act “indecent and pathetic.” He stated that the man has been identified and taken into custody and admitted to lighting his cigarette from the sacred flame. “I am filing a case immediately with the Paris state prosecutors so that this man will be found and sanctions imposed to make an example of him,” Patricia Miralles, the minister for veterans and remembrance,...

The EU is inching toward the biggest peacetime surveillance experiment in its history, with plans to quietly search every private message before you hit send. The European Union is still wrestling with a controversial plan that would turn private messaging services into surveillance tools. For over three years, talks have stalled over whether providers should be forced to scan every user’s messages for possible illegal material and forward anything suspicious to law enforcement. The European Commission is still pushing for a universal scanning requirement. In contrast, the European Parliament insists any checks should apply only to unencrypted messages from people...

Palestinian statehood comes at the end of negotiations for a two-state solution and that process can no longer be held in abeyance, Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said Thursday. “A negotiated two-state solution remains the only path that can offer people on both sides a life in peace, security, and dignity,” he said in a statement issued shortly before his trip to Israel and the Palestinian territories, as reported by Ynet News. “For Germany, the recognition of a Palestinian state comes more at the end of that process. But such a process must begin now.” Wadephul’s remarks follow a string...

The founder of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has been accused of ordering the falsification of research to make it appear that Brexit was detrimental to Britain’s economy. An internal probe conducted by the Homburger law firm into the alleged misconduct of former WEF Chairman and founder of the globalist Davos institution, Klaus Schwab, has reportedly found that the German-born economist orchestrated the manipulation of economic research to advance his political agendas. According to the Swiss Sonntags Zeitung newspaper, the architect of the Great Reset is accused of personally intervening during the World Economic Forum’s 2017/18 Global Competitiveness Report to...

Vladimir Putin started it. Joe Biden didn’t stop it. But, no matter his efforts to the contrary, this is the week in which Russia’s invasion of Ukraine becomes US President Donald Trump’s war. The most powerful office in the world doesn’t always invite choices. Trump is mandated to address the biggest conflict in Europe since World War II because the United States was involved, under his predecessor, as Ukraine’s key ally and sponsor. Trump could have dropped the war entirely. But instead, he chose to impose the force of his personality, initially through the idea he could end it in...

The European Union announced Monday that it will suspend for six months its planned countermeasures against the United States’ tariffs, which which were set to take effect this week. “On 27 July 2025, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald J. Trump agreed a deal on tariffs and trade,” the EU Commission spokesperson for trade said in a statement. The spokesperson touted the agreement as restoring “stability and predictability for citizens and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic.” “The EU continues to work with the US to finalise a Joint Statement, as agreed on 27...