Free Republic

First reported by the BBC, news sites owned by media companies like Tronc and Lee Enterprises are now totally dark in European Union countries. Some of those sites include the Los Angeles Times, the New York Daily News, the St. Louis Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and the Orlando Sentinel. Gizmodo was able to confirm that the websites were being blocked in Europe by using a VPN service that routed internet traffic through various European countries. Internet users who visit sites like the L.A. Times receive a notification like the one below, explaining: Unfortunately, our website is currently unavailable in most...

Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage, one of the most influential Brexit spokesmen, had a meeting with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier yesterday. Although Barnier didn't want to meet with Farage initially, he eventually relented to the British politician's requests. Their meeting was scheduled, and the two men spoke about the negotiations between Britain and the EU about the former leaving the union. Farage was adamant about speaking personally with Barnier because he wanted "to make sure Barnier heard some pro-Brexit views that I suspect the Conservative government has not yet explained to him." It became clear early on in the...

The organizers of an anti-Nazi event in Sweden face controversy Monday, after declining to invite the Jewish community to the event. "Umeå against Nazism" will run in the city of Umeå on Tuesday and Wednesday, commemorating Kirstallnacht, or the "Night of Broken Glass," the massive 1938 pogrom against Austrian and German Jews which is seen as marking the start of the holocaust. But, absurdly, Jews will not be invited. The organizers claim that inviting the Jewish community presents a security risk, nt.se reports, citing anti-Semitic and anti-Israel protests present at past events.

“Doing nothing new and simply working with pre-existing [federal bankruptcy] procedures would have been much better than anything we’ve done so far.”–Harvard Professor Jeffrey Miron, “The Case for Doing Nothing,” July 10, 2009I’ve been a big fan of the Austrian school of economics and have written books on the subject, including “The Structure of Production” and the first purely “Austrian” textbook, “Economic Logic.” The ideas and policies of giants like Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek have much to offer the world. They are better than other schools in identifying the imbalances in the global economy that can cause trouble...

A 38-year-old man in southern Sweden was assaulted on Sunday night after hanging an Israeli flag from his window, with police suspecting it is a hate crime. The incident occurred in Seved, Malmö, shortly before midnight on Sunday when the man displayed an Israeli flag from his window, sources told newspaper Sydsvenskan. The man reportedly exchanged words with men on the street after hanging the flag, and left his apartment. Before the assault the man's window had been smashed where the flag of Israel had been hung. "After that the man went out onto the street to see what was...

A 38 year-old man was assaulted in Malmö, Sweden, on Sunday - for the sole crime of hanging an Israeli flag in his window. The assailants broke the man's window first, prompting him to seek the perpetrators, police said. "After that the man went out onto the street to see what was going on. Then he was attacked and it was on the basis of the flag. That is the information we have at present," police told the TT news agency Monday. They added that ten people chased the man from his building, wielding iron pipes. He managed to narrowly...

A statement issued by the European Union on Tuesday seemed to suggest it supports Palestinian Authority Arabs’ rights to throw stones during non-violent protests. The statement, released on Tuesday by the spokesperson of Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, criticized Israel for convicting PA Arab Bassem Tamimi of dispatching stone-throwers and protesting illegally. An Israeli court convicted Tamimi on Sunday, according to an AFP report. The 45-year-old was charged with soliciting stone-throwing based on evidence that he directed such incidents from the roof-tops. He was arrested on March 24, 2011, AFP reported,...

Laura Rozen’s account of the behind-the-scenes action during the Iranian nuclear talks in Istanbul undermines the notion that President Obama is in control of the P5+1 diplomatic process that he fiercely defended during the weekend. As Rozen’s reporting makes clear, it is the European Union’s Catherine Ashton who was clearly in charge of the affair, and as long as that fierce critic of Israel is calling the shots, it’s unlikely the Iranians will surrender their nuclear ambitions. Indeed, by championing Iran’s right to nuclear development, which could be ultimately used for military purposes, Ashton may be steering the negotiations toward...

THE HAGUE\BERLIN – A Dutch public broadcasting network last month offered its viewers a board game featuring Israeli settlers who use “Jewish stinginess” and “the Anne Frank card” to colonize the West Bank. Organizations combating anti-Semitism have called on the Dutch government to persuade the network, VPRO, to halt the downloading of the board game.

A running theme in my recent commentaries has been the need to secure the safety of Western countries by limiting who enters them. I think most Jihadwatch readers are already convinced that the admission of millions of Muslims into Europe was a catastrophe on the order of... well, what historical incident equals it? The final outcome remains to be seen, so let me lay out a range of possibilities. If the influx is stopped in the next few years, and Western societies overcome the self-gelding political correctness and hysterical scrupulosity that drives them to hold their own societies to an...

A plan by the United States to give over $50 billion in arms to Middle Eastern nations has sparked intense opposition from top German officials. Germany's foreign ministry coordinator for German-American relations, Karsten Voigt, criticized U.S. plans to arm Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Israel. Adding more weapons into an area bristling with arms will not produce peace, he said... The U.S. plan is an attempt to shore up allies and maintain the balance of power in the region, according to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Arab countries would receive U.S. arms...

Last week, a German court sentenced a 55-year old Lutheran pastor to one year in jail for “Volksverhetzung” (incitement of the people) because he compared the killing of the unborn in contemporary Germany to the holocaust. Next week, the Council of Europe is going to vote on a resolution imposing Darwinism as Europe’s official ideology. The European governments are asked to fight the expression of creationist opinions, such as young earth and intelligent design theories. According to the Council of Europe these theories are “undemocratic” and “a threat to human rights.”Without legalized abortion the number of German children would increase...

The body of a police special forces officer who died when Islamic terrorists blew themselves up in Madrid was taken from its grave, mutilated and burnt yesterday.The coffin and body of special agent Francisco Javier Torronteras were pulled from the tomb in Madrid Sur cemetery in Carabanchel and pushed 1,000 yards in a wheelbarrow before being doused with petrol and set alight.The body was found with a pick driven into its head and a spade dug into its chest.Although no motive was immediately apparent, police speculated that it could be the work of sympathisers of the Moroccan terrorist group that...

The Maltese government has this year witsessed a substantial upsurge in illegal immigration. Around 1,200 illegal immigrants, primarily from North African and sub-sahara African states, have landed in Malta since January. This is already twice as much as during the whole of 2004, a Maltese spokesman told EUobserver. "That means that for every two people born in Malta, there is one illegal immigrant", the spokesman said. "If the trend continues at the current pace, this ratio will be three to two by the end of this year", he added... Amnesty International in a report this year criticised conditions in Maltese...

Large Anti-Israel Rally Planned In Washington The white supremacy group National Alliance is planning a large demonstration-and-rock-concert entitled "Rock Against Israel" this weekend outside the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. The organizers are claiming that the rally will be the "largest gathering of white nationalists at the U.S. Capitol in history." The East Coast Anti-Fascist Network is one of a few left-wing pro-PA groups that have come out flatly against the Nazi rally. The group notes that while Nazi assemblies in other cities have been "shut down and chased out, so far they've been given a free pass in...

VIENNA -- The UN atomic agency's investigation of Iran will continue as Iran has failed to provide "sufficient" information on crucial questions about uranium-enriching centrifuges and nuclear smuggling, the agency's chief said on Tuesday. Mohamed ElBaradei also said that Iran had not given access requested by the IAEA to the Lavizan and Parchin military sites, where diplomats say that weaponization work is suspected. Diplomats said that the agency had also requested but had been denied access so far to interview key officials such as Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a brigadier general who has worked at Lavizan. Information is lacking over how close...

Stardate 20021005.2128 (On Screen): As I think many of my readers know, I used to work for Qualcomm designing cell phones. Qualcomm is the company which invented CDMA, and made it practical, and made it into a market success, and it now dominates the American market, where Verizon and Sprint both use it. There are two other nationwide cellular systems: AT&T currently uses IS-136 TDMA, which is obsolete and has no upgrade path. Cingular uses GSM, a more sophisticated form of TDMA from Europe. And right now I'm basking in the evil glow of a major case of schadenfreude. The...

Greece is one step away from being the first member state to face huge fines for breaking the EU's Stability and Growth Pact - the rules underpinning the euro... If Athens fails to achieve this, it could be fined up to 0.5 percent of its GDP - roughly 500 million euro. And the Greek government must produce a report in March on how it intends to reduce its deficit. Greek Finance Minister Giorgios Alogoskoufis told reporters that Greece would "fulfil its obligations" and was grateful for the extra year to do so. Finance ministers judged that to force Greece to...

AMSTERDAM — Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner has rejected a call by MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali to use the intelligence service AIVD to tackle honour killings. Speaking on radio on Friday, Donner said honour crimes and killings were "ordinary crimes" and would continue to be treated as such. Hirsi Ali said in an interview with newspaper De Volkskrant that the police should not only go after the person who actually carries out the killing but also the family members involved in the planning. She suggested the AIVD should be used to gather evidence against all the guilty members of the...

PARIS — For the past four years — as friends erased "Dirty Jew" graffiti from their office plaques and her French-born daughter puzzled over "go back where you belong" comments from strangers on the street — Evelyne Chiche has spent a piece of each day wondering if she was living in the wrong country. This spring, the 62-year-old Jewish radio host plans to move to Miami. "I think it's important for my grandchildren here that I move, to provide them with a safe place should they need to get away," she said, waiting until a nearby businessman left the restaurant...