Free Republic

President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi checked on the forces in the Western Military Zone Saturday telling them, "The Egyptian Army is one of the strongest in the region. Yet, it is a wise army that protects but doesn't threaten, and is able to defend the national security of Egypt within and beyond its borders." The president said that the Air Force, the Special Forces, and the Border Guards have been securing 1,200 kilometers of borders with Libya for seven years, and accomplishing missions that have not been disclosed... The president warned in his speech in Sidi Barani district in Matrouh Governorate...

A group of Republican lawmakers in the House of Representatives urged President Donald Trump on Tuesday to reconsider his decision to cut the number of U.S. troops in Germany, saying their presence is the backbone of NATO’s deterrent against Russian aggression. The six lawmakers led by House Foreign Affairs Committee senior Republican Michael McCaul said in a letter that the U.S. military footprint in Germany served Washington’s strategic interests beyond Europe and into the Middle East and Africa, which have seen the growing influence of Russia and China. […] The lawmakers also warned that Moscow and Beijing sought to sow...

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that a law passed by the Hungarian government to make foreign donations to NGOs more transparent is against European Union laws. Ad The ruling against the transparency law comes after the case was brought to the court by the European Commission after it had initially begun proceedings against Hungary. The NGO law, which was passed in 2017, required NGOs that took 20,500 euros or more a year from overseas to register all foreign donations above 1,500 euros with the government, which shared the information online in order to make foreign funding of...

Groups of people have smashed shop windows, looted, and attacked police vehicles in central Stuttgart during hours of night-time disturbances. German police say more than a dozen police officers were hurt during the violence, in south-west Germany. Video clips on Twitter show people vandalising shops in the city centre and hurling big stones and other objects at police vehicles. Stuttgart police say the violence began after police checked a drugs incident. The situation escalated after a 17-year-old was questioned for an alleged drug offence, the city's police vice-president Thomas Berger told reporters. A group of between 100 and 200 people...

Poland finds itself in a bind. For the past two years, Warsaw has lobbied Washington for an increase in American troop presence on its territory. It now appears likely that it will get at least some of what it wants, but that could be at the expense of America’s presence in Germany. Should that happen, Warsaw would find itself at odds with its economically powerful neighbor, a circumstance that — given the tragic history of German-Polish relations — the Polish government wishes to avoid. Not surprisingly, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki made clear, “It is not [Poland’s] intention to achieve...

European governments are working with the United States on plans to overhaul the World Health Organization, a top health official for a European country said, signalling that Europe shares some of the concerns that led Washington to say it would quit. The European health official, who spoke on condition of anonymity while discussing initiatives that are not public, said Britain, France, Germany and Italy were discussing WHO reforms with the United States at the technical level. The aim, the official said, was to ensure WHO’s independence, an apparent reference to allegations that the body was too close to China during...

Arab clan gangs have threatened to kill police officers who attempt to enforce the law in the troubled area of Marxloh in the city of Duisburg, claiming only sharia applies to them. The Marxloh area has become a hub for Arab clan gangs in recent years. Last month, police faced down a mob of around 200 residents when attempting to arrest a local teen. After using tear gas and calling for reinforcements, it took 36 police to finally detain the youth who had hidden in a residential building. Just days after the incident, police received threatening emails, allegedly from Marxloh...

Merkel outlined her objectives Thursday for Germany’s forthcoming 6-month presidency of the EU, saying a more Global role and Enhanced International Governance are a way forward. This is not the first time Merkel has touted an E.U. global role...Her simple solution remains: more E.U. in more places more often. The presidency of the Council of the European Union passes among member states on a rotating basis and lasts for a six-month period, with Germany taking the role from July 1 until the end of the year.

A pair of top Democrats has introduced a bill aimed at blocking President Trump’s plan to withdraw thousands of U.S. troops from Germany. The bill, introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) in their respective chambers, would prohibit funding to implement a withdrawal in Europe unless several conditions are met. “The current U.S. troop presence in Germany is in the U.S. national security interest. Full stop,” Menendez said in a statement. “The administration has made no effort to explain how our country is stronger because of this...

The Justice Department is preparing to roll back the legal protections big tech companies have used to shield themselves from lawsuits over their content, a move that comes after President Donald Trump threatened to shut them down over what he says is bias against conservatives. The reforms would make companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter more liable for a wide array of content posted on their sites. And it would also push those companies to be more aggressive in addressing harmful conduct on their sites, The Wall Street Journal reported, and to be fairer and more consistent in their decisions...

France is decending into a war zone with guns.  Both muslim gangs are armed. https://twitter.com/descifraguerra/status/1272576971445280770 https://twitter.com/DawkinsReturns/status/1272631024305004545 https://twitter.com/Sotiridi1/status/1272590419868688385 https://twitter.com/EncartL/status/1272598686439108610 https://twitter.com/DarrenPlymouth/status/1272629102042918920 https://twitter.com/BasedPoland/status/1272580808893763585

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg warned Saturday that China’s increasing influence had created a “fundamental shift in the global balance of power” that should not be overlooked. In an interview with Germany’s Welt am Sonntag newspaper, that was released in advance, the Norwegian official said that Beijing had the second-largest defense budget in the world after the United States, and was investing heavily in nuclear weapons and long-range missiles that could reach Europe. “One thing is clear: China is coming ever closer to Europe’s doorstep,” he said. “NATO allies must face this challenge together.” […] Stoltenberg stressed that no member country...

Conservative British politician and Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has left his talk show at LBC radio after he made comments comparing the Black Lives Matter supporters to the Taliban. Farage faced a storm of backlash after tweeting about protesters demonstrating against police brutality and racial discrimination. Protests in the United States over the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while police custody, have spread around the world, including England. “A new form of the Taliban was born in the UK today,” Farage tweeted Sunday. “Unless we get moral leadership quickly our cities won't be worth living...

Police arrived at the home of an Oxford-educated museum curator last night after she tweeted a guide on how to use domestic chemicals to destroy bronze statues in the wake of recent Black Lives Matters protests. Madeline Odent, the privately schooled curator of Royston Museum in Hertfordshire, sent an inflammatory series of tweets last night to her 5,164 followers, which was then shared thousands of times. In the posts, the American-born banker's wife revealed how to dissolve bronze statues, saying that the damage would be 'irreversible' and 'practically impossible to stop'. She then hinted that her next target was Winston...

A dark and shuttered United Nations building in New York will not play host to world leaders for a week of speeches come September, as the globalist body contemplates being silent for the first time in 75 years. A bitterly disappointed president of the U.N. General Assembly confirmed Monday the annual gathering of leaders and bureaucrats been cancelled because of the march of the global Chinese pandemic.

Until recently, Ireland did not blaze much of a trail when it came to human rights at home. The 20th century saw plenty of shameful treatment of vulnerable people, normalized by a deep and often blind devotion to a religious institution that preached a message of compassion. […] The 21st century has seen some improvements but there is still a long way to go. Recent events in the United States and ensuing Black Lives Matter protests have shifted the focus once again to our State’s reliance on Direct Provision. We are no gold star winners either when it comes to...

France said on Friday its military forces had killed al Qaeda's North Africa chief Abdelmalek Droukdel, a key Islamist fighter that its forces had been hunting for more than seven years, during an operation in Mali. "On June 3, French army forces, with the support of their local partners, killed the emir of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abdelmalek Droukdel, and several of his closest collaborators, during an operation in northern Mali," French Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly wrote on Twitter. The announcement of the death of Droukdel comes almost six months after former colonial power France and regional...

Trump orders Pentagon to remove thousands of troops from Germany: report BY J. EDWARD MORENO - 06/05/20 03:36 PM EDT 2 Trump orders Pentagon to remove thousands of troops from Germany: report © Getty Images President Trump has directed the Department of Defense to send 9,500 troops home from Germany, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, which would bring the total stationed there down to 25,000. A defense official told the Journal the plan, which was ordered by national security advisor Robert O'Brien, has been underway since September and is not related to rising tensions between Trump and German...

Move would cut 9,500 American service members from Germany, where 34,500 are permanently assigned... President Trump has directed the Pentagon to remove thousands of American troops from Germany by September, a move that would dramatically reshape the U.S. military posture in Europe and reflects growing tensions between Washington and Berlin over military spending and other security issues, U.S. government officials said Friday. The removal order would reduce the U.S. troop presence in Germany by 9,500 from the 34,500 service members who are permanently assigned there. It would also cap at 25,000 the number of American troops.

Egypt has announced an anti-Turkey alliance that includes Greece, Cyprus, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and France to confront Turkish moves in Libya and the Mediterranean. The announcement was made during a virtual meeting with the foreign ministers of these countries on May 11. In a joint statement issued shortly after the meeting, the five-party alliance said it will focus on confronting the Turkish moves in the territorial waters in Cyprus, where Turkey has been carrying out “illegal” excavations in the Mediterranean under Cyprus sovereignty. The alliance also condemned Turkey’s escalated violations of Greek airspace.  The European Union condemned May 16...