Free Republic

307 jobs are under threat at online payment firm PayPal’s offices in Dublin and Dundalk in County Louth. The company is opening a consultation with impacted staff who have been notified about the situation. The roles that are being targeted for compulsory redundancy are across a range of functions. 135 of the positions are based in company’s Dublin office in Blanchardstown, while the remaining 172 roles are in the County Louth town. PayPal has stressed that the decision does not change its commitment to Ireland. “PayPal remains committed to Ireland and our Dublin and Dundalk sites will continue to be...

Veteran US statesman Henry Kissinger has urged the West to stop trying to inflict a crushing defeat on Russian forces in Ukraine, warning that it would have disastrous consequences for the long term stability of Europe.The former US Secretary of State and architect of the Cold War rapprochement between the US and China told a gathering in Davos that it would be fatal for the West by the mood of the moment, forgetting the proper place of Russia in the European balance of power.Dr Kissinger said the war must not be allowed to drag on for much longer, and came...

German industry is reportedly preparing to institute gas rationing in Europe’s largest economy as Vladimir Putin’s Russia cut off shipments to Finland, which has launched an application to join the NATO military alliance. The Federal Network Agency of Germany, locally known as the Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA), is reportedly drafting action plans to implement gas rationing in response to Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s demands that unfriendly nations purchase natural gas from Moscow in rubles rather than Western currencies such as the dollar or euro. According to a report from the Reuters news agency, BNetzA — which regulates energy in Germany — said:...

The EU has threatened to use "all the measures at its disposal" after the United Kingdom signalled it would introduce legislation to change the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland. Britain says its move to change the legally binding treaty — an apparent breach of international law — is an insurance policy in case it can’t reach an agreement with the bloc to end a long-running dispute over post-Brexit trade rules. ... The announcement drew a sharp response from the EU, which has long accused Prime Minister Boris Johnson of trying to wriggle out of a deal that his government negotiated...

UKRAINIAN President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says that he’s ready to talk with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He said “we must find an agreement,’’ - but with no ultimatum as a condition. Zelensky told Italian RAI state TV in an interview: “We want the Russian army to leave our land, we aren’t on Russian soil". “We won’t save Putin’s face by paying with our territory. That would be unjust.” In another comment, Zelensky said of the future: “We have to think of the future of Russia. I, as president of Ukraine, say these are our neighbours. There will be other presidents, other...

A Russian lawmaker is warning Friday that recent comments from Poland’s leaders are encouraging Moscow to "put it in first place in the queue for denazification after Ukraine." Russian State Duma Deputy Oleg Morozov, using language Russia has sought to justify its bloody invasion of Ukraine, made the remark on his Telegram page, according to Russian state media. "By its statements about Russia as a 'cancer tumor' and about the 'indemnity' that we must pay to Ukraine, Poland encourages us to put it in first place in the queue for denazification after Ukraine," Morozov reportedly wrote.

NATO's number two largest military has just come out blasting Finland and Sweden's potential membership bid, with Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in televised comments to reporters describing the Scandinavian countries as safe havens for "terrorism". Turkey is "not favorable" regarding potential membership of Sweden and Finland to NATO, Erdoğan said as quoted in The Associated Press, citing concerns over political activities of backers of separatist Kurdish militants in both countries. "Sweden has become a home for PKK and other terror groups. We don’t view their NATO membership positively," he said according to a Turkish media correspondent's translation.Erdogan says Scandinavia countries have...

What began as a straightforward U.S. policy of arming the Ukrainians has expanded into a dangerous and rapid escalation.The New York Times on Wednesday published an op-ed by Tom Stevenson arguing what some of us have been arguing for a while now: the Biden administration is openly — and recklessly — pursuing a policy of escalation in Ukraine that represents a new and very dangerous phase in the war.Stevenson, a journalist who reported from Ukraine in the opening weeks of the war, argues that initially the United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies responded to Russia’s invasion...

A Russian official has boasted that Russia would destroy NATO countries in "half-an-hour" if conflict escalated to the use of nuclear weapons. Dmitry Rogozin, Head of Russia’s Space Agency Roscosmos and former Deputy Prime Minister, said Sunday that in the event of a nuclear war, "NATO countries will be destroyed by Russia in half-an-hour." ON WORLD WAR II ANNIVERSARY, ZELENSKYY SAYS EVIL HAS RETURNED He stressed that such an event "cannot be allowed because the consequences will impact the [entire] Earth."

Ireland’s President Michael D Higgins has suggested that Elon Musk loosening speech restrictions on Twitter would be “incredible and dangerous narcissism”. “Is it a great success that a multi-billionaire would be now deciding what is appropriate for people to exchange by way of discourse? I think it can hardly be described as anything other than a manifestation of an incredible and dangerous narcissism,” the 5’3″ octogenarian opined at what was supposed to be a climate change conference at Dublin City University, clearly referring to Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter but declining to identify the South African entrepreneur by name

The servicemen of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) are fighting alongside the Russian military, who have been taking part in the special military operation in Ukraine since 24 February. President Vladimir Putin stressed that the operation was aimed at ending the "genocide" of the Donbass people. Russian President Vladimir Putin has congratulated the people of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) amid the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union's WWII victory against the Third Reich. He stressed that the DPR and LPR military are currently fighting to be liberated from Nazism just like...

A century after its fraught foundation, Northern Ireland looks set for a constitutional earthquake this week with the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein on course to win regional elections. Apart from periods of direct rule by London, pro-UK unionists have monopolised power ever since Britain carved out a Protestant-majority statelet in 1921, when the rest of Ireland achieved self-rule. But pollsters expect victory on Thursday for Sinn Fein, which was once the political arm of the paramilitary IRA, in polls for the devolved assembly in Belfast. The party took the deputy leadership in a power-sharing deal with unionists when Northern Ireland...

Unless something changes in a very big hurry, some very major grief is going to ensue.

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks said that in an ideal world, if the abortion issue is put to state legislatures, “we would wind up where Europe is” on abortion “where they say, there are strong arguments here, let’s try to find some way to reconcile.”

Citing “discrepancies in content,” the German magazine Der Spiegel has removed a video showing the testimony of an evacuee from Mariupol’s ‘Azovstal’ factory, a stronghold of the neo-Nazi Azov militants and other Ukrainian fighters. The woman in the video had revealed that her family were basically being lied to, held hostage, and used as human shields by the Ukrainian militants. Der Spiegel published the three-minute video on Monday. It featured Natalia Usmanova, who had worked at Azovstal before the conflict and sheltered there with her husband and children. In the recording, Usmanova tells reporters that Azov militants “kept us in...

Former President George W. Bush called Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky “the Winston Churchill of our time” after the two spoke in a videoconference Thursday morning. Bush posted two images of the meeting on Instagram tagged with a location of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Texas, showing the 43rd president smiling while seated at a conference table. The chat came as Ukraine remains under siege by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces. “I was honored to spend a few minutes talking with President Zelenskyy – the Winston Churchill of our time – this morning,” Bush said in the post....

Russia has stepped up its propaganda war against Sweden by producing bus stop advertisements accusing the peaceful Scandinavian nation of being Nazis. The hybrid warfare strategy comes as Sweden prepares for NATO accession, abandoning decades of neutrality in light of Moscow's military aggression towards Ukraine. The provocation comes hot on the heels of Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov's incendiary comments that 'Hitler had Jewish blood', which drew demands for an apology from Israel. The campaign has seen adverts pop up in Russia depicting various Swedish national heroes as Nazis with the slogan: 'We are against Nazism, they are not.' The...

Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in an interview on Italian television on Sunday that the fact Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is Jewish does not negate the Nazi elements in his country. Lavrov added that Nazi Germany's Chancellor Adolf Hitler also "had Jewish blood." This is a developing story with more details to come.

The Conference on the Future of Europe has approved measures calling for the establishment of a European Union army and centralising power in the hands of Brussels eurocrats on Saturday.

The EU faces difficult questions that need to be debated now rather than later. Europe needs a strong deterrent against Moscow, and that will only be possible if France and Germany team up to advance the debate. In the end, the meeting at the United States airbase in Ramstein, Germany, resembled a ribbon ceremony with praise awarded to the most diligent. Germany is a great friend that is doing everything it can to support Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said. It was not only thanks for the Germans’ proposal to send tanks to Ukraine, but also the polite...