Free Republic

The humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is accused of failing to adequately inform the Swiss authorities of the scale of reports of sexual misconduct by MSF staff in Chad. The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has now suspended funding of CHF1.25 million ($1.52 million) to MSF. The frozen amount represents one tranche of the CHF6.25 million pledged to MSF for the current year. According to the newspaper NZZ Am Sonntag, an internal investigation by MSF revealed 59 reports of sexual violence and exploitation, particularly involving women and young girls who are refugees from neighbouring Sudan. Eighteen staff...

Alexis Nungaray, the mother of 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray, the young girl who was raped and murdered in June 2024, allegedly by two Venezuelan illegal aliens, appeared Tuesday with President Donald Trump in Corpus Christi, Texas.

The leaders of Finland and Norway called Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to urge him to end the war in Ukraine, breaking with a longstanding practice among Western European leaders of shunning direct contact with the Kremlin. The phone call by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere was a bid to influence the diplomatic process at a time when President Donald Trump has shifted his position in favor of Russia and U.S. ties with Ukraine have hit their lowest point in 18 months. The Nordic leaders spoke by phone to Putin and afterward to...

Flavio Bolsonaro and his family have fled Brazil and will be granted visas by the State Department to enter the United States. Bolsonaro, who has stopped short of conceding this weekend’s election to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, was reportedly set to arrive in the U.S. on Tuesday evening despite an investigation into him in Brazil. He is understood to be joined by his wife and two daughters. “The State Department will issue visas to Flavio Bolsonaro and his family and allow them entry into the United States,” a Trump administration official told the Washington Examiner. The former right-wing...

Recently, I visited a university in the UK and struck up a conversation with a woman whose story has stayed with me. She has a PhD; her thesis was on Chinese interference in Britain, and she is now studying for a law degree. When I asked why someone with her qualifications would go back to the start in a different field, she told me that academia had canceled her because of her work on China. She is not famous, which left me wondering why anyone would bother to cancel her at all. If a researcher with no public profile can...

Two violent attacks by armed individuals — one on October 20 and another on October 24 — left 60 Christians dead and 20 homes burned to the ground in Ethiopia. The Independent reported, “14 people were killed in Merti district” on the 20th and another “46… [were killed] in Shirka district four days later.” Moreover, over 20 people were injured “and 20 homes destroyed.” The BBC noted, “A church official described the attacks on three areas in the Shirka district as a ‘massacre,’ saying security forces arrived at the scene but were unable to stop the assault.” Concerns about the...

Wes Streeting’s remarks were made following the launch of a government campaign urging Brits to stock up with emergency supplies. British Defense Secretary Wes Streeting has said the country must be ready for war in 1,000 days, after the government advised citizens to stock up on essential supplies. Writing in the Telegraph over the weekend, Streeting warned that the UK’s enemies could be ready to launch an attack on the UK by 2030. He wrote: “Our adversaries’ willingness to harm us is not new. What has changed is their capacity. By 2030, their force strength and war economy could put...

Brazilian Senator Flávio Bolsonaro has left the country for the United States after losing Sunday's presidential election and refusing ‌to comply with a Supreme Court order to hand over his passports, two sources said. The U.S. Embassy in Brazil did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Bolsonaro's lawyer also declined to comment. Flávio's departure for the United States threatens ​to deepen a rift between the two most populous nations in the Americas. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has accused Washington of colluding with the Bolsonaros to put them ​back in power, and Reuters reported ahead of...

Benjamin Netanyahu has requested an extension to voting hours as millions of Israelis head to the polls in the country’s first elections since Oct 7. The prime minister’s Likud party petitioned to extend voting beyond 10pm owing to fears of low turnout among his supporters. It follows Mr Netanyahu’s earlier claim that Arab parties were trying to steal the election by bribing voters with envelopes of cash. Mr Netanyahu’s main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, opposed the extension request. “The request is intended to lay the groundwork for claims challenging the integrity of the election,...

Lack of profits and the threat posed by western countries are raising concern about the sustainability of Beijing’s AI boomTrillions of dollars have been wiped from China’s stock markets in recent months amid increasing anxiety about the future of artificial intelligence, as Beijing races against the United States for dominance in the sector.The STAR 50 Index, which tracks technology and innovation companies on the Shanghai stock exchange, has plunged 40% since June. Other indexes of major companies dropped by about 20% over the same time period. The precipitous drop has wiped out $2.4tn from the Chinese stock market since May,...

BREAKING: The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to restore a Biden-era regulation allowing immigration judges to suspend some deportation proceedings......... The Supreme Court just gave President Trump a big win over immigration courts when it comes to deportations. In short, the courts now no longer have the ability to close deportation cases on their own.

The shift to the right across South America has been stopped. One of President Trump’s key regional allies has been defeated. The global left, and most of the centre, has been celebrating the victory of President Lula over Flávio Bolsonaro in a closely fought election this weekend. There is just one problem. As the brutal sell-off of financial assets demonstrated, Brazil has also voted for economic chaos. That rarely ends well. While the left were toasting victory on Monday morning, investors were furiously dumping Brazilian equities and, more importantly, debt. On Monday the Bovespa – Brazil’s main stock market index...

The Ukraine war’s mounting casualties, Western divisions, and dwindling prospects for victory make a negotiated peace increasingly urgent before the conflict spirals into an even greater catastrophe. The Ukrainian Gordian KnotAfter crossing with his army into Asia, Alexander the Great stopped at Gordium (in modern-day Turkey). He approached the famous Gordian knot—a tangled mass of bark tying an ox cart to a pole, so intricate and tight that no one could unravel it. When told that anyone who could untie the mess would rule all of Asia, Alexander simply pulled out his sword and cut through it—solving the problem and...

Europe resents its dependence on American military power while criticizing Washington’s foreign policy, exposing the hypocrisy, insecurity, and economic decline undermining its global influence. Nearly every week, another psychodrama arises between the United States and its NATO partners. Europeans blame the Trump administration for the usual things—a lack of cordiality and bombastic threats. But two truths, rarely spoken, characterize all these spats. One is hypocrisy; the other is insecurity. Take Trump’s recent demand that Ukraine cease attacks on Russian diesel refineries. Given the midterms and the critical issue of fuel prices, it was understandable that Trump might request an energy...

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israelis will vote in a pivotal election Tuesday as their country is embroiled in unresolved wars, still reeling from Hamas’ 2023 attack and deeply divided over the character of the state and the right person to lead it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces off against a coalition of parties seeking to oust the longtime leader from power. Opinion polls have suggested a tight race with his main rival, former military chief Gadi Eisenkot.In Israel’s fragmented parliamentary politics, no single party has ever won an outright parliamentary majority, so political leaders must forge coalitions. But in a tight...

The allegations come after several countries in the region elected conservative leaders following the Trump administration’s decision to dismantle USAID and shift remaining foreign assistance functions to the State Department. "You have plenty of examples out there of how USAID was attempting to run its own foreign policy," U.S. Ambassador to Panama Kevin Marino Cabrera told Fox News Digital. Cabrera said USAID’s dismantling has allowed the State Department and U.S. Southern Command to work more closely with partner countries on disaster relief and recovery efforts. "We’re focused on actual disaster relief and recovery. We’re not focused on these crazy agendas,...

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said on Monday that ​the country's federal police had requested that he ‌turn in his passports following a visit to his imprisoned father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The senator, who was defeated on ​Sunday by President Luiz Inacio Lula da ​Silva in a runoff vote, said he intended ⁠to comply with the request, denying he planned to ​flee the country after the election. The younger Bolsonaro claimed, ​without providing evidence, that the police request was based on a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Brazil's ​top court and federal police did not immediately reply...

SEOUL, South Korea — The U.S. military, citing unspecified “risks to our personnel,” on Monday banned electric vehicles manufactured by Chinese automaker BYD from Kadena, a key U.S. air base on Okinawa. “These vehicles present an unacceptable and unmitigable risk to our personnel and our mission,” spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Alli Stormer said, per Reuters. She did not say what specific concern had prompted the move against vehicles produced by BYD, the largest global supplier of EVs, but the firm had, in June, been put on a Pentagon black list of 188 Chinese companies. Japanese media speculated that the presence of...

Investors had hoped for friendly overhauls such as spending cuts and deregulation Brazilian financial assets were swept by a historic rout Monday after the surprise election victory of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrong-footed investors who had bet on his defeat.The Brazilian real slid more than 10% against the U.S. dollar while the country’s benchmark stock index fell nearly 17%, which would mark a record daily loss. The index’s plunge triggered a circuit breaker, leading Brazil’s stock-exchange operator to temporarily halt trading.Global investors had piled into Brazilian markets in recent weeks after Flávio Bolsonaro—the eldest son of former President...

PORT HURON, Michigan, Oct 25 (Reuters) - US President Donald Trump on Sunday escalated ​his invective against Norway, calling it a "shit house country" and ‌saying Norwegian immigrants were not welcome in the United States because the Nobel committee, based in the capital Oslo, had not awarded him a Peace ​Prize. Trump made the comments at a political rally in Port ​Huron, Michigan, ahead of next week's midterm elections Attributing recent unrest in ⁠France to immigration, Trump said he would welcome immigrants from some ​countries but not from Norway "because I didn't get the Nobel Prize ... ​So I don't...