Free Republic

Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and cease ruling Gaza, the French presidency said on Tuesday after receiving a letter from him. The letter was addressed to President Emmanuel Macron of France and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, who will jointly chair a U.N. conference in New York next week to explore the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Macron has set a number of conditions for the possible French recognition of such a state at that meeting, including the disarmament of Hamas. “Hamas...

Reform UK’s newest MP called for the burqa to be banned in Britain during Prime Minister's Questions. Sarah Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, used her first question at the weekly Commons session to ask Sir Keir Starmer if he would follow other European countries that have made it illegal for people to cover their faces in public places. She said: “Given the Prime Minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interests of public safety, follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?” Her question prompted an...

During excavation of a gravel pit on the shores of the Yonne River in 1966, workers uncovered the foundations of a Roman villa just south of the Roman town of Autessiodurum (present-day Auxerre). The 7,500-square-foot structure contained around 10 rooms and was inhabited from the first through fourth century a.d. This discovery would prove to just be the tip of the iceberg, however. According to La Brüjula Verde, renewed archaeological work conducted at the site six decades later by the French National Institute of Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) has revealed a sprawling 43,000-square-foot estate that is among the largest villas...

Substantial evidence has emerged to suggest that the UK Met Office is promoting the political cause of Net Zero by using recently introduced sensitive thermometers to collect 60-second unnatural heat spikes. These pulses are used to promote constant clickbait ‘records’ and claim exaggerated atmospheric warming. Furthermore, it appears that these short-term ‘spikes’ are larger in junk sites with massive internationally recognised ‘uncertainties”. Almost eight in 10 of the Met Office’s nationwide temperature measuring stations are in junk CIMO Classes 4 and 5 with possible errors up to 2°C and 5°C respectively. On May 1st, the Met Office claimed a station...

Russia - Masque Of The Red Death Vladimir Putin has been hailed perhaps as the pivotal post cold war Russian leader. He has executed a skillful dog and pony show, convincing both the Bush and Blair administrations that the former Soviet Union was not only no longer a military threat to the West but was indeed now becoming a close ally. Obviously Russia's cooperation with the French and German UN delegation's intransigence in dealing with Iraq has done much to throw cold water on this heretofore-budding union. It's important to note that such a relationship offered hope, though ultimately unfounded,...

The United Arab Emirates is spending $20 billion on OpenAI’s Stargate UAE. The project is billed as a sovereign AI capability, yet it relies entirely on American chips, software, and infrastructure. This is the sovereign AI paradox: The harder nations push for AI independence, the deeper their dependencies become.The UAE is not alone. From Paris to New Delhi, governments are pouring billions into so-called “sovereign” frontier models. France backs Mistral. India promotes BharatGPT. Each promises strategic autonomy yet is dependent on a globalized stack.The term “AI factories,” adopted by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, rebrands data centers as strategic infrastructure akin...

One common Israeli tactic to get information about Israel's adversaries is to leak news out to elicit a denial of the leaked story... This week Israel's "Ynet News" claimed that France had backed away from plans to recognize a Palestinian state. But the Elysee Palace denied the content of the story... This week three Serbian nationals charged with paint vandalism of five Jewish sites in Paris last Friday. The judge in the case alleging the Serbs acted on behalf of a foreign power... And a story getting a lot of attention in the French media in the last 24 hours....

Whales, as the largest mammals on Earth, have long been an important resource for human societies, whether it be for food, oil, or other materials. According to a report by Popular Science, hunter-gatherers in present-day Spain and France have been crafting essential tools from whale bones for much longer than previously thought. A new study analyzed 83 bone tools found at sites along the Bay of Biscay and 90 additional bones from the Santa Catalina cave in Spain. The investigation relied on mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to determine that humans living in the region have been making whale-bone tools,...

ransomnote: At the link, there's a chart showing the proxy war in the Ukraine.Sir Keir Starmer’s flagship plan to transform the armed forces has been undermined in less than 24 hours after Nato demanded the Government spend 3.5 per cent of GDP on defence.On Monday, the Prime Minister unveiled his long-awaited Strategic Defence Review (SDR), setting out the future of the British forces and how they would adapt to future battlefields, with a focus on AI, drones and cyber technology, while remaining a “Nato first” military.However, Sir Keir declined to commit to a firm timeline on when he would hit...

The comments, in an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, were Trump’s clearest indication to date that he was unsure he would be able to quell Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Ukraine and Russia may need to keep fighting, President Donald Trump said Thursday, comparing the warring nations to squabbling children in what appeared to be a signal that the U.S. leader was losing interest in brokering peace in a conflict he once promised to end in a day. The comments, in an Oval Office meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, were Trump’s clearest indication to date that...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch opposition parties called Wednesday for fresh elections as soon as possible, a day after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders sparked the collapse of the country’s four-party coalition government.Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s 11-month-old administration fell apart when Wilders withdrew his Party for Freedom ministers. Schoof and the ministers of three remaining parties remain in power as a caretaker Cabinet.The government, with limited powers, now has to lead the country for months before new elections and during what could — again — be protracted talks to cobble together a new coalition in the fragmented Dutch political landscape...

The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders pulled out of the coalition over the government’s asylum policy. Wilders had been adamant leading up to the collapse that without strict restrictions on immigration, his party would leave the coalition government. Wilders made good on those threats Tuesday. “We had no choice. I promised the voters the strictest asylum policy ever, but that was not granted to you,” said Wilders, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Netherlands’ prime minister, Dick Schoof, said Tuesday following the Party for Freedom’s exit that he would hand...

France didn’t plan to blow the whistle on the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to take over Europe. But that’s exactly what it did a couple of weeks ago, when a classified report from the Ministry of the Interior leaked to the newspaper Le Figaro. The 73-page document, marked confidentiel-défense, was meant for top officials only. Based on intelligence files, field investigations, and dozens of interviews, it lays out a stark diagnosis: The Muslim Brotherhood has built an extensive ideological infrastructure in France—not through violence, but through schools, charities, mosques, and soft power. It states: “The Brotherhood’s strategy is to install a...

MADRID (AP) – Spain has cancelled a deal for anti-tank missile systems that were to be manufactured in Madrid by a subsidiary of an Israeli company, in a bid to move away from Israeli military technology, the Defense Ministry said Tuesday. The decision will affect the license for 168 SPIKE LR2 anti-tank missile systems with an estimated value of 285 million euros ($325 million). The systems would have been developed in Spain by Pap Tecnos, a Madrid-based subsidiary of Israel´s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, according to local press. “The goal is clear…a total disconnection from Israeli technology,” government spokesperson Pilar...

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee dismissed France’s potential upcoming recognition of a Palestinian state, calling the move “revolting” while Israel fights Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “It’s incredibly inappropriate in the midst of a war that Israel is dealing with to go out and present something that I think increasingly Israelis are steadfast against,” he told Fox News. Huckabee’s comments came after French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that recognizing a Palestinian state, with conditions, is “not only a moral duty, but a political necessity.” Macron also said that European countries should “harden the collective position” against Israel if...

Derek VanBuskirk, a reporter from the Daily Caller, was racially profiled by a black apparent South African while on his way to the country to investigate claims of genocide in the country. “After 30 hours of travel, I got here about an hour and a half ago. I actually have already been racially profiled,” VanBuskirk said in a video shared on X. “It actually happened in Paris as I was getting onto the plane.” VanBuskirk told his colleagues a black man with a what appeared to be a South African accent stopped him at the airport gate as he was...

France is no longer France.

Two people have been killed and 500 have been arrested in France during PSG victory celebrations, authorities said on Sunday. Paris Saint-Germain beat Inter Milan 5-0 to win the Champions League for the first time in the team's history. CNN reported that as of Sunday morning, nearly 560 people had been arrested, including 491 in Paris. There were 320 people placed in police custody and 254 of them were in Paris alone. Police chief Laurent Nuñezs said a 17-year-old died from stab wounds and a man in his 20s died in a collision with a vehicle.

The Associated Press recorded an incident that led to widespread discussion and speculation as President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Vietnam... The incident seized on by critics of Mr. Macron including online influencer Candace Owens... (The tensions with Israel again boiling over on Friday as President Emmanuel Macron warned of a toughening French stance on Israel likely to include sanctions on 'right-wing' cabinet ministers and Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria (The West Bank)... France's enemy of the future foretold on Friday in Singapore as President Emmanuel Macron spoke of France establishing security and other ties with Asian nations... In the...

“Make sure the door remains closed,” the US president has quipped over a video showing France’s First Lady shoving her husband on a plane US President Donald Trump has said Emmanuel Macron is “fine” following an incident in which his wife Brigitte appeared to slap her husband aboard their plane.The footage, which quickly went viral, was filmed as the French first couple arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam, on May 25 to begin a Southeast Asia tour. As the aircraft door opened, Macron was seen speaking to someone off-camera. Two arms in red sleeves then reached out and pushed his face,...