Free Republic

MOSCOW (Reuters) -Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin dismissed as complete nonsense remarks by U.S. President Joe Biden that Russia would attack a NATO country if it won the war in Ukraine, adding that Russia had no interest in fighting the NATO military alliance.The war in Ukraine has triggered the deepest crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and Biden warned last year that a direct confrontation between NATO and Russia would trigger World War Three.In a plea to Republicans not to block further military aid earlier this month, Biden warned that if Putin was victorious...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed "problems" for Finland after he says the Nordic country was "dragged into NATO" amid the war in Ukraine. "Look, Finland was taken and dragged into NATO," Putin said in a new on-camera interview. "What did we have, some kind of dispute with Finland? All disputes, including those of a territorial nature in the middle of the 20th century, were all resolved a long time ago. We had the best, most heartfelt relations. Economically, everything was developing. Yes, in the timber industry, there were some problems linked to the necessity to develop timber processing within...

Alex Batty was found Wednesday in southwestern France by a delivery driverA 17-year-old British boy was found safe in France this week, six years after being taken by his mother, and recently ran away from her because she wanted to move them to Finland, according to a report. In 2017, Alex Batty went on a two-week trip to Spain with his grandfather and mother, Melanie Batty — who didn't have legal custody of him and allegedly abducted him — but the trio failed to return to the U.K. at the time. Alex said after they went off-the-grid, they were constantly...

NATO’s newest member, Finland, has announced it will sign a bilateral defence cooperation agreement next week with the United States. The deal will allow Washington to station troops and store weapons inside the Nordic country, which shares a sprawling border with Russia.

KEY POINTS: * Tesla is facing mounting pressure across Scandinavian countries to sign a collective bargaining agreement with employees in Sweden. * Finnish transport workers’ union AKT on Thursday confirmed that a blockade on Tesla vehicles earmarked for Sweden would also come into force across all Finnish ports from Dec. 20. * One of Denmark’s largest pension funds on Wednesday announced that it would sell its holdings of Tesla stock over the U.S. giant’s refusal to enter into agreements with labor unions. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tesla’s troubles with labor unions in Scandinavia deepened as it lost legal action against Sweden’s postal service...

The prehistoric site is known as Tainiaro, located about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Finnish region of Lapland...Back in 1959, local workers came across stone tools in Simo, which is situated near the Baltic Sea's northern edge, just 80 kilometers to the south of the Arctic Circle. The site, named Tainiaro, underwent partial excavations in the 80s. This led to the revelation of thousands of artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, and animal bones.The archaeologists were also able to notice 127 possible pits of different sizes that could have been sediment-filled. Some had burning evidence, while others...

Finland has announced it will close its last remaining border crossing with Russia amid concerns that Moscow is using migrants as part of “hybrid warfare” to destabilise the Nordic country following its entry into NATO. “The government has decided to close all the crossing points on the entire (830-mile) eastern border,” prime minister Petteri Orpo told reporters, saying Finland faced an “exceptional” situation that the government blames on Moscow for orchestrating. The Kremlin has denied encouraging migrants to enter Finland and says it regrets the Finnish border closures. It comes as multiple drones were fired towards Kyiv on Tuesday evening,...

The Pentagon not ready to comment on Iranian video of a drone overflying the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier... Starting on Friday warships from ten nations will patrol the Baltic Sea and North Sea... Outside the White House the national Christmas tree toppling... "We will not be part of a government that allows Hamas to exist" Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir warning... Peru's Attorney General Patricia Benavides formally accusing President Dina Boluarte of responsibility for the deaths of protesters late last year... "When the Minister of Justice insults the deputies of the National Rally, he insults millions...

Pekka Kallioniemi, a postdoctoral researcher at Tampere University in Finland, put forward the theory that Moscow could be deliberately pushing Helsinki to shut its borders to prevent Russians from fleeing should Russian President Vladimir Putin introduce a full-scale mobilization to draft more troops to fight in Ukraine.... "There is an interesting and feasible theory, that Russia will start partial or full mobilization after the March 2024 presidential elections, and that they actually WANT Finland to close the border so that young Russian men can't flee through Finland like they did during the first mobilization wave," Kallioniemi wrote on X, formerly...

The 28-year-old Iraqi man was so unhappy with the standard of asylum in Finland that he chose to return to Sweden, and rape a Swedish woman on the way. The woman did not want to notify the police at first, because of situation: the poor rapists was a refugee. But now the rapist has been convicted to imprisonment and deportation by the district court, which also states that he is not a refugee at all. The rape took place on the night of October 10 at a night train between Umeå and Sundsvall. The woman had booked a shared compartment...

Finland has accused Russia of flooding its borders with migrants from the Middle East and Africa over its decision to increase defense cooperation with the United States, a claim which Moscow denies. As many as 300 migrants from Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and Syria have arrived in Finland this week, Reuters reported, citing the Finnish Border Guard. The arrivals have prompted Finland to erect barricades at the border with Russia to stop the migrants from crossing freely into the country. The razor-wire barriers were put up Friday around midnight at the Vaalimaa, Nuijamaa, Imatra and Niirala border posts in southeast Finland,...

The Kremlin said on Monday it deeply regretted Finland's decision to shut crossings on its border with Russia, a move it said reflected Helsinki's adoption of an anti-Russian stance. Finland, a member of the European Union and - starting this year - also of the NATO military alliance, closed four crossings on its border with Russia on Saturday as it seeks to halt a flow of asylum seekers it says was instigated by Moscow. The border crossings it closed were by far the busiest crossing points. -snip- Russia's foreign ministry said later on Monday it had lodged a formal protest...

In the early hours of Thursday, the Minister of Internal Affairs of Estonia launched a pointed accusation against Russia, alleging a failure to detain illegal migrants at its borders. The incident sparking this contention involved eight Somali citizens attempting to circumnavigate immigration control, attempting to enter Estonia via Narva. Geopolitical Tensions Highlighted This incident brings to light the ongoing concerns around border security and immigration control, issues that hold significant weight for Estonia, given its geographical location and strained political relations with Russia. The accusation by the Estonian official not only underscores these concerns but also spotlights the intricate complexities...

HELSINKI, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Finland will erect barriers at four crossings on its border with Russia from midnight, officials said on Friday, in a bid to stem an increase in migrants that Helsinki says has been orchestrated by Moscow. Finland has accused Russian authorities of funnelling migrants to the crossings in retaliation for its decision to increase defence cooperation with the United States, an assertion dismissed by the Kremlin. Barriers will go up at four of the nine crossings with Russia, at Vaalimaa, Nuijamaa, Imatra and Niirala in its southeast, the Finnish Border Guard said. "Our aim is to...

An appeals court in Finland has dismissed bogus “hate speech” charges against pro-life Finnish lawmaker Päivi Räsänen in a massive victory for free speech and religious freedom. Christian Democratic MP Päivi Räsänen criticized the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland, of which she belongs, for participating in a LGBT pride event in Helsinki. “How can the church’s doctrinal foundation, the Bible, be compatible with the lifting up of shame and sin as a subject of pride?” Räsänen wrote on Facebook underneath a photo of verses from Romans 1:24-27. The Helsinki Police Department received complaints about the post and decided to investigate...

Sometimes it takes a punch to the gut or a slap in the face. For many “civilized” people the instinct is to deescalate, to appease an adversary, based on the belief that civilized people do their best to avoid fights. It’s a tactic that is smart when dealing with other civilized people. Generally speaking, fighting is a losing proposition, and if you can resolve a dispute by talking and compromise the chances that the costs of compromise will be lower than the costs of fighting are high. But this instinct is wrong, even stupid when dealing with uncivilized people. Their...

I’ve written about Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala before. She was one of the leading doctors who dealt with pediatric gender identity patients in Finland and recently she’s become a critic of the model known as gender-affirming care. Monday, the Free Press published a lengthy essay by Dr. Kaltiala in which she outlines her personal involvement in this issue and what she believes about it now.Her story really starts in 2011 when a group of Dutch doctors published a paper arguing that teens (primarily males) could be given hormones to prevent puberty and allow them to pass more easily as women. This...

Earlier this month, as the world’s attention was focused on the horror unfolding in Israel and Gaza, it was easy to miss the news that two subsea telecommunications cables and a gas pipeline in the Baltic Sea had been damaged. On the night of 7 October, the 77-kilometre Balticconnector gas pipeline and a separate but close-by subsea telecommunications cable stretching between Finland and Estonia were damaged in the Gulf of Finland. A week later, it emerged that, on the same night, another subsea telecommunications cable—connecting Estonia and Sweden—had also been damaged. (snip) This case, however, appears to have been no...

Dr. Riittakerttu Kaltiala, 58, is a Finnish-born and trained adolescent psychiatrist, the chief psychiatrist in the department of adolescent psychiatry at Finland’s Tampere University Hospital. She treats patients, teaches medical students, and conducts research in her field—publishing more than 230 scientific articles. In 2011, Dr. Kaltiala was assigned a new responsibility. She was to oversee the establishment of a gender identity service for minors, making her among the first physicians in the world to head a clinic devoted to the treatment of gender-distressed young people. Since then, she has personally participated in the assessments of more than 500 such adolescents....

The pipe was not covered with aggregate, although such a cover was intended to protect the pipe specifically from anchor damage. (BORDER GUARD DEPARTMENT) The Balticconnector gas pipeline between Finland and Estonia should have been protected by a 2-meter gravel cover. This is evident from the joint environmental impact assessment of Finland and Estonia from 2015. The assessment specifically took into account the dragging of the anchor along the seabed. The pictures published by the [Finnish] Navy show that there were no rocks protecting the pipe at the point of damage." https://www.iltalehti.fi/kotimaa/a/3a...