Free Republic

It’s been a weird year for Spanish tourism. Scroll through the British press and you’d think Spaniards are fed up with tourists altogether, from protests in Mallorca to “Tourists go home” graffiti in Barcelona. But behind this noise, travel experts say something else is happening: misinformation. Now, British travel agencies have had enough. The UK’s main travel association, ABTA, has launched a guide to help agents explain the situation to worried clients. In doing so, they push back against what they call a “distorted picture” of Spain’s relationship with tourism. A guide for Brits travelling to Spain Speaking at the...

Ireland’s media regulator began an investigation into social media platform X on Wednesday over concerns it is not giving users a chance to appeal content moderation decisions and that its internal complaint-handling systems are not easy to access. The probe, the first opened by the regulator in its role supervising the compliance of platforms established in Ireland with the European Union’s Digital Services Act, will assess Elon Musk-owned X’s compliance with parts of the law. […] The investigation arose from concerns held by the Irish regulator’s supervision team, as well as information provided by a non-governmental organization, HateAid, and a...

The hunt for the assets of the former East Germany’s ruling party has the hallmarks of a thriller. There are dubious characters, bags of cash, and key witnesses who suddenly die. At its heart is the question: How do you stash away 6 billion marks?

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is not “afraid” of Donald Trump unlike other western leaders and dismissed reports that their last meeting in Washington was volatile, adding that he had good relations with the US president. He also said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian that King Charles had helped build relations with Trump and described the British monarch as “very supportive” of Ukraine. The Ukrainian president denied claims Trump had tossed maps of the battlefield aside in a stormy exchange in October at the White House, where he had arrived hoping to secure supplies of US Tomahawk cruise...

Embedded video linked to X Pro-Palestinian protesters attempted to firebomb a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra in Paris on Thursday night. During the performance, which was held at the prestigious Philharmonic Hall in Paris, dozens of protesters broke into the hall, chanted anti-Israel slogans and lit flares. The music was stopped and the musicians began to leave the stage. A post published by the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University read: "Pro-Palestinian protesters firebombed a concert and the musicians were removed from the stage. After the matter was resolved, the they were brought back on stage to...

After New York City’s race for mayor catapulted Zohran Mamdani from state assembly member into one of the world’s most prominent progressive voices, intense debate swirled over the ideas at the heart of his campaign. His critics and opponents painted pledges such as free bus service, universal childcare and rent freezes as unworkable, unrealistic and exorbitantly expensive. But some have hit back, highlighting the quirk of geography that underpins some of this view. “He promised things that Europeans take for granted, but Americans are told are impossible,” said the Dutch environmentalist and former government adviser Alexander Verbeek in the wake...

Democratic candidate Zohran Mamdani has won the New York City mayoral election. His victory comes despite many distortions and false claims circulating about him — including one from President Donald Trump. A fact check. As they chose the next mayor of New York City, voters faced a pivotal decision that reflects a broader generational and ideological divide with national implications. The race for mayor of the biggest city in the United States pitted Democratic nominee Zohran Kwame Mamdani against independent candidate and former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Republican repeat contender Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani's win marks a historic moment: he will...

A senior EU official has said he expects the US "not to interfere" in global climate negotiations in Brazil next week, citing aggressive behavior at last month’s International Maritime Organization (IMO) meetings in London. At those talks, US officials reportedly intimidated diplomats from Africa and the so-called Small Island States, warning some they might lose US transit rights or face entry restrictions for themselves and their families if they did not help block the UN-backed Net Zero Framework for shipping. The official said they were unaware whether commission staff had been targeted directly. “We have no indication our colleagues were...

The establishment’s supposed love of democracy ends exactly when democracy—as expressed by the popular vote—stops loving the establishment. And so, with the AfD looking increasingly likely to gain power in one or more German states after next year’s elections—especially in Saxony-Anhalt, where it recently crossed the 40% mark in a regional poll for the first time—mainstream figures are preparing to make it as difficult as possible for the party to govern. That is, if they can’t simply strip the AfD of its hard-won power altogether. Politicians are considering destroying documents before the opposition enters office, and even handing state power...

Officials have said the prospects of EU environment ministers agreeing ambitious targets to reduce carbon emissions by 2040 will go down to the wire when they gather for an emergency meeting in Brussels. Member states have been tasked with agreeing on a 2040 target at today’s meeting so that they could in turn agree on an interim target for 2035, which the EU would then bring to the United Nations COP30 summit in Brazil on Thursday. However, officials have said securing an agreement will be “challenging”. The European Commission had proposed a target of cutting carbon emissions by 90% by...

Back aways, we reposted a story that told the grim truth about the fate of babies with Down syndrome in Denmark. In 2019 there were virtually none—just 18! When I read “The last children of Down Syndrome” by Sarah Zhan, I immediately thought of the 2017 story from CBS News about Iceland titled “What kind of society do you want to live in? Inside the country where Down syndrome is Disappearing.” Zhan’s is a brilliantly written piece that appears in the Atlantic magazine. The subhead puts the story in the larger context: “Prenatal screening is changing who gets born and...

Europe’s deepening economic crisis and a rising conservative front in Eastern Europe are putting the European Union under pressure. Brussels is responding repressively to this growing strain, stepping onto the thin ice of censorship and thought control. This policy forces submission or encourages secessionist tendencies. Two well-documented political flashpoints best illustrate the EU Commission’s shift in mindset. On one hand, the Brexit process, sabotaged by Brussels and London, and on the other, the ongoing conflict with Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. Orbán has built a political model on resisting open-border policies, deliberate demographic shifts, and the escalating Ukraine conflict. His message is...

BOMBSHELL REPORT: Nearly $2 BILLION in foreign dollars were poured into policy advocate groups in the U.S., including to the group behind anti-Trump protests in Washington D.C.

A shocking poll shows that two years after Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre that murdered more than 1,200 Israelis, a majority of Palestinians still say the terror group was right to launch the attack — and, equally disturbing, an overwhelming 86 percent deny that Hamas committed the well-documented atrocities against civilians. According to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), 53 percent of Palestinians say Hamas’s decision to launch the October 7 assault was correct; support is strongest in the West Bank at 59 percent, while 44 percent in the Gaza Strip back the attack — a...

A group of sick Palestinian children have been evacuated from Gaza to Ireland to receive medical treatment, the Tánaiste and Minister for Health have confirmed. Seven children arrived in Dublin on Saturday evening, with 29 accompanying family members.It marks the third medical evacuation from Gaza following Government approval in September last year in response to an appeal from the World Health Organization (WHO) to address the health needs of Gazans. Doctors from Children’s Health Ireland (CHI) worked with the WHO to identify sick and injured children who would benefit from treatment in Ireland. The group traveled from Gaza to Jordan...

Germany’s globalist political class is once again talking about going to war with Russia. Officials in Berlin have suggested that Europe should “prepare for conflict,” a statement that’s raised alarms across the continent. But while Germany rattles sabers, another European Union member is already at war, not with Moscow, but with its own citizens.Romania, one of NATO’s key Eastern members, has quietly constructed an enormous internal surveillance system under the banner of “national security.”Documents obtained under Romania’s Freedom of Information law reveal that from the 2024 presidential elections through September 2025, the country’s Supreme Court issued 2,843 national security warrants....

The commercial features an “expert” interrupting a white Danish couple as they flirt with each other. He explains to them that the history of war in Denmark introduced foreign DNA into their gene pool which “protected them from disease”. He then compares their relationship to inbreeding and suggests they find new partners with more “exotic” genetics. The woman then smiles as if she’s intrigued by the idea.

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF), a German public-service television broadcaster, published a clarification on Monday regarding claims that the IDF struck an employee of a Palestinian Arab production company that worked in collaboration with the network A week ago, ZDF reported that an employee of the Arab company and the son of another employee were killed as a result of an IDF strike on Deir al-Balah in the Gaza Strip. The network wrote in a statement that it reached out to the IDF to demand answers regarding the circumstances of the deaths, and that the IDF provided unequivocal proof that the...

A French court on Friday sentenced an Algerian woman to life imprisonment without parole for raping, torturing and murdering a girl in Paris, making her the first woman to receive this maximum sentence. Dahbia Benkired was handed an “irreducible life sentence” for killing 12-year-old Lola Daviet in the French capital in 2022, in a case that horrified the country and sparked anti-immigration fervour because the woman did not have the right to be in France. The sentence is the harshest under the French penal code. “We believed in justice and we got it,” said Lola’s mother, Delphine Daviet, following the...

Catherine Connolly’s lop-sided victory to be Ireland’s next head of state was accompanied by a surge in vandalized ballots from right-wing voters. DUBLIN — Independent socialist Catherine Connolly swept to a landslide victory Saturday to become Ireland’s next president, dealing a record-breaking rebuke to the two center-ground parties of government.Jubilant supporters of the 68-year-old Connolly, a lawmaker from the western city of Galway, embraced and kissed her as final results from Friday’s election were announced at the Dublin Castle count center.In her victory speech, Connolly struck an immediate note of unity. She stood side by side with Ireland’s government...