Free Republic

The sheer amount of roughly one million illegal migrants in Spain seeking amnesty could lead to a “collapse” of the nation’s basic services such as housing, education, or security, experts warned. Spain is presently in the final weeks of a widely-criticized mass amnesty process launched by the government of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez that aims to grant half a million illegal migrants with “legal” residence status, work permits, and other benefits. Despite the initial “half a million” estimates stated by Spanish officials in January, officials recently acknowledged that over 900,000 amnesty requests had been submitted by migrants, confirming estimates...

A man named Stephen Ogilvie is lying in a coma after a brutal knife attack on a Belfast street. If he wakes, he will have lost at least one eye and will carry severe scars on his face and neck for the rest of his life. The man charged with attempting to murder him is a 30-year-old Sudanese national who entered the United Kingdom in 2023 after traveling through Paris and Dublin before claiming asylum. In the days after the attack, Belfast erupted. Homes were burned, businesses were attacked, and families fled their neighborhoods. The political class quickly condemned the...

For nearly half a century, the Islamic Republic of Iran has attempted to convince the world that it represents justice, morality, and the will of the Iranian people. But behind the propaganda lies a brutal reality that millions of Iranians know all too well. The regime’s systematic oppression of women remains one of the clearest examples of its cruelty and fear. For as little as showing a strand of hair, Iranian women are met with intimidation, imprisonment, torture, or worse. Today, the world is once again witnessing the Islamic Republic’s relentless assault on the dignity and freedom of women. Recently,...

A“learning curve” is the concept correlating proficiency with experience to sharpen one’s skills. Historically, the Brits have demonstrated a good grasp of this, although a recent independent study indicates a dangerous lapse exists today. Prior to the American Revolution, the learning curve served British General Edward Braddock well. Fighting the French and Indian War (1754–1763), he led a force of 2,000 troops through Pennsylvania on a mission to capture a French fort in Duquesne. Having only trained on European battlefields where tactics involved tight formations confronting each other, Braddock approached the fort, marching his men in such a manner. But...

• Nuclear monitoring: US Vice President JD Vance touted Sunday as a “very, very good day” of negotiations between the US and Iran and denied that bombastic statements from President Donald Trump upended negotiations. In what he described as a “major milestone,” Vance said Tehran has agreed to admit nuclear monitors into the country. • Waiver for Iranian oil sales: The vice president today also described an initiative for unfreezing Iranian assets that would grant the US approval over what Tehran can purchase using the money. And the US Treasury today issued a 60-day waiver on the sale of Iranian...

Abelardo de la Espriella faces leftist Iván Cepeda as President Petro faces allegations of improper campaign involvement

“These games that Iran plays makes them an adversary that you can't trust," Markwayne Mullin said. As U.S.-Iran negotiations got off the rocky start in Switzerland, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin revealed Sunday that Tehran tried to sneak several military-tied operatives into the United States with its World Cup soccer team. Mullin said more than half the soccer representatives Iran tried to bring with its team had ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and that even a man posting Saturday as their soccer federation president was tied to the extreme military group and then I've entered ahead of...

Starmer’s political career has been almost Shakespearean in its trajectory: a mere 11 years to enter parliament, lead Labour to an election win e and then, inside the final two years, throw it all away. No modern prime minister has looked so well-suited to the job on paper and been so fundamentally inept in practice. “Starmer didn’t know what he was doing in three ways,” “Firstly, he never worked out what the job was – what does the prime minister do? Secondly, he never knew what he wanted to do, above all not on economic policy. And thirdly, he didn’t...

Three unidentified people, reportedly Afghan nationals, carried out a deadly attack on Masjid and Imambargah Baqeeatullah in Pakistan’s Karachi on late Sunday evening (June 21). The incident took place in Karachi’s Defence Phase Five. The entire incident was caught on camera, and dramatic visuals also surfaced online. According to reports, the people involved in the attack were driving a Suzuki pickup truck. In the video, it could be seen that a speeding truck entered the mosque, creating panic among the people present inside the religious place. According to reports, at least 30 people were injured in the attack. The injured...

Polish President Karol Nawrocki has announced that he is stripping his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy of the Order of the White Eagle, Poland's highest state honour. Nawrocki made the decision in response to Ukraine naming a military unit after the controversial World War Two Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In a video posted on X on Friday evening, Nawrocki stressed that the decision to withdraw the honour "is not directed against the Ukrainian nation" and "does not signify a change in the strategic direction of Poland’s security policy". He also underlined that Poland’s support for Ukraine in its war with Russia remains...

According to a new report from the Department of Homeland Security, members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp attempted to smuggle themselves into the United States under the guise of the Iranian World Cup team.the northern border, says Secretary Mullin. Iran reportedly attempted to smuggle members of the IRGC into the US as part of their World Cup team according to US homeland security.— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) June 21, 2026🚨 Iran’s Islamist Terror Regime tried to sneak IRGC-linked operatives into the US as part of the Iranian World Cup delegation, says Homeland Security Secretary @SecMullinDHS.There has also been an influx of...

The right-wing candidate Abelardo de la Espriella has narrowly won Colombia's presidential election, according to the initial vote count, marking a dramatic shift in how the government will tackle the country's internal armed conflict and violence. Espriella, who was endorsed by Donald Trump, has pledged a military crackdown on illegal armed groups, drug trafficking and crime. He appeared to defeat the left-wing Iván Cepeda, a close ally of the president, Gustavo Petro. Reacting to the result, he said "today begins a new stage for our country, a stage built on the free and democratic will of millions of citizens who...

The Trump-admiring far-right millionaire lawyer and self-styled “outsider” Abelardo de la Espriella has won Colombia’s presidential runoff, defeating the leftwing senator Iván Cepeda. With 99.98% of ballots counted in the preliminary vote tally, De la Espriella had secured 12.95m votes, or 49.66%, just 249,901 more than Cepeda, who received 12.7m votes, or 48.7%. A further 1.6% of ballots were cast blank. The margin was narrower than in the first round three weeks ago, when De la Espriella had beaten Cepeda by 673,000 votes. De la Espriella’s victory marks a sharp swing back to the right after four years under Colombia’s...

June 21 (UPI) -- The Russian government on Sunday halted fuel sales to civilians and businesses not considered vital to functioning and security in Crimea. Sergey Aksyonov, the governor of Crimea, announced people would be turned away from gas stations amid a fuel shortage and logistical difficulties related to the war with Ukraine, the BBC reported. "Further decisions regarding the current situation in the republic's fuel market will be announced at a later date," he said in a post on Telegram. The announcement came amid new attacks by Ukraine on energy and transportation infrastructure on the Crimean Peninsula, Politico reported....

Tashkent looking for more control over mining-sector value chain.Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan are strengthening economic connections, signing a variety of agreements covering mining, banking and tourism. Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Aripov and his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ali Asadov, presided June 16 over a signing ceremony in Tashkent of a cooperation agreement under which the two countries will jointly develop an Uzbek gold deposit as well as other mineral resources. Ural Yusupov, Uzbekistan’s deputy mining minister, previously indicated that Tashkent was intent on conducting comprehensive surveys of precious metal deposits in the Kashkadarya and Surkhandarya regions, along with critical mineral deposits in Karakalpakstan...

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday that President Trump will take military control of the Strait of Hormuz if the U.S.-Iran framework agreement falls apart, escalating the administration's rhetoric on the same morning Vice President JD Vance landed in Switzerland for talks with Iranian negotiators."If this deal fails, Trump is going to take the strait over by force," Graham said on CBS's Face the Nation. "The United States will control the strait. We will charge a fee for those who go through."The comments came hours after Trump floated the same idea on Truth Social, saying that if the...

The Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein announced that he would veto an attempt to legalize abortion in the country. In February, a committee in the Principality of Liechtenstein launched a popular initiative to decriminalize abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. The initiators have also demanded that the ban on providing information on abortion be lifted and that health insurance cover the cost of an abortion. Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein announced that he would veto it once the Landtag, the Parliament of the principality, passed a law decriminalizing abortion. In an interview with Liechtensteiner Vaterland on Wednesday, he was...

Israelis overwhelmingly view the war with Iran and the subsequent deal between Tehran and the United States in a negative light, with 92.1 percent of Israelis believing the Islamic Republic to have won, according to a survey published Sunday. The poll of 3,644 respondents, conducted between June 17 and 20 by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in collaboration with the Agam Institute, paints a stark picture of public sentiment following the US-Iran deal. The survey found that even among voters who support the right-wing bloc led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 93.1% believed Iran had won. Furthermore, 82.9% of respondents...

US President Donald Trump warned Iran to stop supporting proxies in Lebanon, warning that he could resume strikes on the country should they fail to do so in a Sunday Truth Social post. "Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble," Trump wrote, implying Hezbollah. "If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again," he added. Additionally, Trump warned Iran not to close the Strait of Hormuz in an overnight conversation, Fox News reported Sunday. "You close it, and you won't have a country," Trump said he told Iranian officials, according to the Fox News...

MAJDAL ZOUN, Lebanon — Buried beneath a hilltop village in southern Lebanon, just kilometers from the Israeli border, the Hezbollah terror group built an underground drone “airbase” from which it launched Iranian-made unmanned aerial vehicles at Israel. The subterranean facility, guarded by massive steel blast doors, was built in the past decade with direct Iranian assistance, including planning and funding, Israeli military officials told The Times of Israel during an organized media tour of the site last week. Journalists were brought into Lebanon at dusk, so that the visit to the tunnel would take place under the cover of darkness...