Free Republic

The NATO-Russia Council is meeting for the first time in nearly two years, with the U.S.-led alliance planning to object to what it deems provocative and dangerous actions by Moscow’s military. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday’s meeting at alliance headquarters is being held to exchange views on Ukraine and other issues, but also to discuss improving “mechanisms of risk-reduction related to military activities.” …

Sikh, Jewish and Christian representatives attend campaign launch following death of Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah Ahmadi Muslims in Scotland have launched an anti-extremism campaign following the death of the Glasgow shopkeeper Asad Shah, despite the failure of other prominent Muslims to attend the event. Representatives of the Glasgow Central Mosque and the Muslim Council of Scotland were invited to attend the launch alongside other faith groups, but the Guardian understands that both sent their apologies at the last minute. ..The Guardian has reported on how Ahmadis across the UK face shunning and discrimination by Muslims of Shia and Sunni faiths...

Some of Samia Sultan’s neighbours don’t greet her any more, and sometimes it’s hard for her to understand why. Sultan, a dentist, lives in Glasgow, in an area of the city that is – like most Muslim populations in the UK – majority Sunni. But Sultan isn’t Sunni: she is Ahmadi. And that is the source of the problem. “My neighbours were fine, but when they came to know I was Ahmadi, their attitude changed,” Sultan explains....“They would no longer reply to my greeting As-salāmu ‘alaykum [peace be upon you]” with Wa’alaykumu s-salām [and upon you peace].” When Asad Shah,...

The administrative authority of the European Parliament has expressed security concerns after the discovery of CDs containing Islamic State (IS) propaganda in the possession of two chauffeurs with its external driving service. Several sources with knowledge of the situation told Spiegel that one of the discoveries had been made in Strasbourg, where the parliament holds its plenary sessions, and the other in Brussels, where most of its work is conducted. Both employees of the private chauffeur service were fired and police are investigating. After obtaining information that other chauffeurs in the service had criminal records, the European Parliament Presidium made...

No incentive for Saudis to let up Getty Saudi Arabia's minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Ali al-Naimi (C) arrives for the OPEC meeting, in the Qatari capital Doha, By WilliamWatts Deputy markets editor Why would the Saudis give up now?That’s the question crude oil bulls should have been asking themselves ahead of the Sunday meeting of major oil producers that failed to produce an agreement to put a lid on production. Prospects for a deal fell apart after Iran refused to sign up, prompting Saudi Arabia, the world’s swing producer, to effectively walk away. Those that believed Riyadh had...

The rapid deterioration of Libya’s oil-dependent economy is threatening the objectives of the country’s new Western-backed government and budding efforts to confront the Islamic State in North Africa, political and security analysts say. Within hours of arriving in Tripoli two weeks ago, the government made controlling the nation’s oil a priority. It persuaded a powerful militia to hand over three oil terminals, and the national oil company gave its support. But the road to securing Africa’s largest reserves is riddled with even greater obstacles, and bringing the battered industry back to its full potential promises to be a colossal mission....

The Tata Steel sale has revived the battle between protectionists and free traders, a debate that became particularly acute in the run-up to the creation of the World Trade Organisation in 1995, which marked the success of “free traders” all around the world. In the protectionist camp, there is now a wide range of political parties from the extreme left to the extreme right: from Syriza to Ukip, from the Front National to Podemos. The common element for all these parties is that they dream of returning to a time when “we were in control”; when we could easily open...

The Chancellor says income tax could rise by 8% and billions would be cut from public services if the UK votes to leave the EU... says Treasury analysis has found that UK tax receipts would be £36bn-a-year lower after 15 years... the amount the officials calculate the exchequer would lose if Britain was forced to enter a trade deal similar to that which Canada has recently negotiated. The figure is the same as eight pence in the pound added to income tax. The 'Canadian model' is the scenario that many who want to leave say would be in Britain's best...

On the cobbled alleyways of Montmartre, as a busker warbled La Vie en Rose and street artists painted watercolours of the view over Paris, Master Corporal Jean-Claude had been up since dawn leading a platoon of soldiers on patrol in full camouflage and flak jackets with fingers resting lightly near the triggers of their assault rifles. “Our mission is to protect, dissuade and reassure,” he said in clipped tones, as his men from the 3rd Marine Infantry Regiment, normally based in Brittany, snaked past pavement cafes, tour groups and couples kissing, scanning all around for bombs or terrorists. A young...

As a former Pentagon spokesman who’s been stationed in both Europe and Asia over a 20-year military career, I believe Donald Trump is 100 percent correct to insist that our allies share the burden of collective defense. While Americans should be proud of our historical role to advance global freedom -- defeating Nazism and imperialism during World War II, communism during the Cold War, and battling jihadist terror networks today, we can’t be the world’s policeman forever. We can’t afford it. So let’s take a look at some facts & figures: NATO is an alliance of 28 nations with a...

British soldiers have provided Saudi Arabian forces with training for cruise missile and artillery attacks since Riyadh entered the war in Yemen, despite international condemnation of the kingdom’s air strikes and claims they have killed scores of civilians. The details of the training were revealed on Friday after freedom of information requests, made by the human rights group Reprieve and seen by Middle East Eye, were released. The Ministry of Defence has maintained that British forces are not helping Saudi forces direct strikes, select targets or conduct operations in Yemen. However, information in the FoI shows how close military cooperation...

..Czech leaders, fed up with their country’s long and complicated full name, have proposed changing it to a single word with just three syllables: Czechia. In a joint statement, the president, prime minister and other senior officials said they would ask the UN to update its database of geographical names with the new title, in the hope that it might take root before the country competes in the Olympics this summer. Although some Czech Republic sporting teams have long been referred to with a single word, Czech (the national ice hockey team have the word emblazoned on their jerseys), this...

Thousands of migrants are pouring into Sicily by sea every day, sparking fears that the ancient Mediterranean isle has become ‘the new Lesbos’. Arrivals to the island have increased by 90 per cent in the first three months of the year. In the last three days alone, more than 6,000 migrants have arrived... ...nearly 20,000 migrants have arrived in Italy by sea since January, compared to just 10,000 during the same period in 2015. Almost 90 per cent landed in Sicily. Donald Tusk, the European Council president, called the crisis a 'never-ending story'... Last night, the migrants were rescued just...

Bono understands your plight. He knows you pay a lot in taxes. He wants you to pay more: Tuesday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, U2 frontman and anti-poverty activist Bono called for the U.S. to send more assistance to Europe to shore up the European Union as it buckles under the Third World migrant crisis, even though Americans are struggling to bear their own tax burdens. “I know the American taxpayer is really hurting at the moment and the same in Europe,” Bono said. “But I think between Europe and America there is a consensus building that, you know, the corruption...

Donald Trump recently ignited another controversy when he mused that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization was obsolete. He hinted that it might no longer be worth the huge American investment. In typical Trump style, he hit a nerve, but he then offered few details about the consequences of either staying in or leaving NATO. NATO is certainly no longer aimed at keeping a huge Soviet land army out of democratic Western Europe, as was envisioned in 1949. The alliance has been unwisely expanded from its original 12-nation membership to include 28 countries, absorbing many of the old communist Warsaw Pact...

...Gross was questioned after multiple complaints were filed with prosecutors by Polish citizens over an article published in 2015 in which Gross said Poles killed more Jews than Germans during the German occupation – a claim that challenges a widespread conviction in Poland that the Polish response was almost exclusively honourable. Gross made the comparison in an article published by Project Syndicate in September critical of how Poland and other eastern European countries have reacted to the migrant crisis. He decried as “heartless” the region’s opposition to accepting refugees and argued that the attitude was rooted in the region’s “murderous...

GERMANY has announced plans to ban images of scantily-clad women in adverts in response to the sexual assaults in Cologne on New Year’s Eve. German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said the move to ban ads which "reduce women or men to sexual objects" is an attempt to create a "modern gender image”. The plan has been called political correctness gone mad by its critics, who said it was the first step towards a “nanny state”.

Sunday, April 10, 2016 Islam is Colonialism, Palestine is Colonialism Posted by Daniel Greenfield At Israeli Apartheid Week, campus haters claim to be fighting “colonialism” by fighting Jews. Columbia University’s Center for Palestine Studies, dedicated to a country that doesn’t exist and which has produced nothing worth studying except terrorism, features diatribes such as Palestine Re-Covered: Reading a Settler Colonial Landscape”. This word salad is a toxic stew of historical revisionism being used to justify the Muslim settler colonization of the indigenous Jewish population. You can’t colonize Palestine because you can't colonize colonizers. The Muslim population in Israel is a...

Macedonian police fired tear gas as migrants screamed “Allah hu Akbar” and tried to break through the border fence from Greece in a series of clashes that left over 200 people injured on Sunday. The illegals attempted to overwhelm police by charging in large numbers, tearing down the chain-link fence and throwing rocks and tear-gas bombs at Macedonian police. The incident happened at the Idomeni border crossing, which is fast becoming infamous as a flashpoint for violence as thousands of stranded migrants try to break through the border into Macedonia to continue their journey to northern Europe. Now the Greek...

Billionaire financier George Soros has warned that the European Union is in mortal danger of collapse if it doesn’t agree a massive cash injection to fix the refugee crisis. In an essay written for the New York Review of Books, Soros also claimed that a humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in Greece. “The asylum seekers are desperate. Legitimate refugees must be offered a reasonable chance to reach their destinations in Europe,” the investor wrote in the publication.