Free Republic

Spain’s Foreign Ministry has called for the immediate release of a Spanish citizen detained by Israel following the interception of a Gaza-bound flotilla, after an Israeli court extended his detention by two days. Saif Abu Keshek, a resident of Barcelona, and Brazilian national Thiago Ávila appeared before a court in Ashkelon on Sunday, several days after Israeli forces intercepted multiple vessels attempting to breach Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza. The flotilla consisted of dozens of boats carrying activists from numerous countries. Israeli authorities stated that over 170 individuals were removed from the vessels, with Abu Keshek and Ávila transferred to...

Estibaliz Kortazar, a far-left Spanish activist, did what good comrades do, she opened her home to a North African migrant. Once he got what he wanted, the man started sexually harassing her, insulting her, and beating her. Then he threw her out, changed the locks, and took over the house. She called the police for help. Their response? “We can’t do anything without a court order.” Now she’s sleeping at relatives’ houses, seeing a psychologist after a nervous breakdown, and has launched a petition to fast-track the legal process and get her home back.

President Trump announced Friday he would soon raise tariffs to 25% on vehicles imported from the European Union, claiming the bloc was non-compliant with its US trade deal. “I am pleased to announce that, based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” he said in a post to Truth Social. Companies that build vehicles in the United States will be exempt from the tariff, he added. “Many Automobile and Truck...

At a time when secularization has long been treated as an irreversible trend in Western Europe, new data indicate that a significant segment of Spanish youth may be rediscovering religious identity... Preliminary findings from the forthcoming “Spanish Youth Report 2026,” produced by the SM Foundation and based on data collected in 2025, suggest that 45 percent of young people in Spain identify as Catholic. The figure marks a notable increase from 31.6 percent in 2020... Several dynamics appear to be at work. One is demographic: religious families... tend to have higher birth rates and transmit faith more consistently. Immigration also...

Donald Trump has eight days before he will be forced to make up his mind on Iran. He wants to end the unpopular war, but claimed on Thursday he was under “no time pressure” to do so. In fact, the US president is bound by the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which limits his ability to wage war without congressional approval to 60 days. That deadline passes on May 1, 60 days after his formal notification of the war to Congress on March 2. It will compel him to choose one of four options – seek congressional authorisation to continue the...

A survey in Spain found some 80.5 percent of individuals aged 17–25 reject the socialist government’s mass amnesty plans for half a million illegal migrants, the digital newspaper El Español reported on Sunday. The survey was conducted by the polling and research firm SocioMétrica for El Español between April 15 and 18 — the same week that the socialist government led by Prime Minster Pedro Sánchez began its mass amnesty process to benefit 500,000 illegal migrants in Spain with legal residence and work permits. The Spanish government launched the highly criticized amnesty process despite a fierce rejection from the nation’s...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Sunday urged the EU to end its association agreement with Israel. In an escalation of his criticism against Israel, he said during a rally in Andalusia that “a government that violates international law or the principles of the EU cannot be its partner.” Spain will formally propose the termination of the agreement at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Tuesday in Luxembourg. Sánchez has emerged as one of Israel’s most vocal critics in the EU. He accused Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of committing genocide in Gaza and denounced the joint U.S.-Israel strikes...

An international fugitive was arrested in Dubai this week following a years-long manhunt. Daniel Kinahan, the alleged leader of one of Ireland’s biggest criminal gangs, the Kinahan cartel, was arrested on organized crime charges on Wednesday in a covert operation involving Irish and United Arab Emirates authorities. The 48-year-old alleged crime boss is expected to face charges in Ireland related to a gangland feud between the Kinahan cartel and the Hutch gang that has left 18 people dead since 2015. Dubai police didn’t name Kinahan, saying they had “arrested an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an organized criminal...

Elf Aquitaine, until its privatisation in 1994, was much more than a oil company - according to prosecutors at the trial of Elf's top managers. They claim the state-owned firm worked as an unofficial arm of France's murkiest diplomacy. The close relationship between Elf and French officials is well-documented, and goes back to the presidency of General Charles de Gaulle. As the company expanded into Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, Elf paid secret "commissions" to African officials with the blessing of French governments. By the 1980s Elf had operations in Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Cameroon, Angola and Nigeria - which,...

Spain’s laws now place the absence of consent at the centre of sexual offence definitions. Photo credit: PeopleImages/Shutterstock Spain’s Tribunal Supremo (Supreme Court) has clarified that physical contact of a sexual nature without consent, including an unsolicited kiss on the hand, constitutes a sexual assault offence rather than street harassment. The decision establishes a clear legal boundary and will influence how similar incidents are treated under Spanish law. The case involved an incident in January 2023 at a bus stop in Alcobendas, Madrid, where a man took a woman’s hand, kissed it without her consent, and attempted to persuade her...

Spain’s Council of Ministers will approve on Tuesday a royal decree initiating an extraordinary regularisation process for nearly half a million migrants in the country, Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced. In a post on X, Sanchez described the move as "normalisation," acknowledging the reality of nearly half a million people, calling it "an act of justice and a necessity." Underlining that Spain is ageing, Sanchez linked the role of migrants to the country being the fastest-growing economy in Europe. "Neither technology nor automation will solve this challenge on their own in the coming years. The path is clear: better integration,...

Pedro Sanchez, the current Prime Minister of Spain and Trump's most vocal critic in Europe, has a serious problem: he already leads a minority government held together by a coalition of left-wing parties, and in the coming elections looks headed toward a major defeat. He has been embroiled in questions about his wife's corruption, and was almost forced to resign when the allegations first arose. 🇪🇸 Spanish PM Sanchez’s wife charged with corruptionBegoña Gómez, the wife of Spanish far-left Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has been formally charged with multiple corruption-related offenses, including influence peddling, business corruption, embezzlement, and… pic.twitter.com/n04JCTaMZl— Visegrád...

MADRID: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s wife, Begona Gomez, has been formally charged with corruption after a years-long criminal investigation, according to a court ruling published Monday. The probe is one of several corruption cases that have embroiled the Socialist leader’s family and former allies, putting pressure on his minority coalition government. Judge Juan Carlos Peinado opened the investigation in April 2024 to determine whether Gomez had exploited her position as Sanchez’s wife for private gain, which she and the prime minister deny. The case centers on the creation and management of a chair at Madrid’s Complutense University that was...

In UN Watch's press release, the NGO cited the UN's Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) recent nomination of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Program and Coordination. UN Watch demanded an explanation on Saturday from democratic countries for why they'd allowed "serial abusers of human rights" to be elected to key positions in the United Nations. In UN Watch's press release, the NGO cited the UN's Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) recent nomination of Iran to the UN’s Committee for Program and Coordination, which would include an active role in shaping policy on women's rights, disarmament, and terrorism prevention, as...

Spanish police recovered a 17th-century velvet guild manuscript that had been missing for a century after spotting it for sale online. The artefact will remain the property of its current owner, but it will now be conserved. The manuscript is a copy of ordinances signed in 1479 by Ferdinand the Catholic that elevated velvet-making from a trade to an art, granting the velvet-makers privileges and social recognition. Agents from the Heritage Group of the National Police Unit assigned to the Valencian Community found the document during routine monitoring of online sales of cultural goods, police said in a statement. The...

Poll in Spain: Trump and Netanyahu are seen as two of the three most dangerous leaders in the world. Trump was ranked as the biggest threat to world peace, followed by Russian President Putin. Spaniards perceive Netanyahu as more dangerous to peace than Iran's new leader. 81% of survey respondents said Trump is endangering global peace - more than any other leader. The Spanish government is considered the most hawkish in Europe against Israel and President Trump's policies. Why it matters: The survey reflects the worsening criticism in Spain towards Israel and the US, also among citizens and not just...

--SNIP-- Europeans are far more vulnerable to Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorism. They are more reliant on oil from the Middle East, some of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz. All the US had initially requested was basing support in disarming a common Western enemy that, for nearly half a century, has slaughtered American diplomats and soldiers and tried to kill an American president and secretary of state. But most NATO members could not even offer tacit help. Some ****** the US effort as either illegal or unnecessary. The American public watched the British waffle for days over permitting the US...

THE SUPRANATIONAL MOVEMENT AND THE DANGEROUS POLICIES IT CREATES I do call it Conspiracy (Part 1 of a Three-Part Series) by Don Laigle Last Tuesday, during the EU-US summit with President Bush, EU President José Barroso innocently asked for visa-free travel to the US for all European citizens. Barroso, of all people, ought to know the risk this would pose for the American people. Because the president of his home country, socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, is behind an open border policy (see Part 2 of this report at Laigles Forum) that has even ranking EU officials feeling uneasy, and...

NATO endures on American backing while many allies demand U.S. action abroad but withhold it when asked, exposing a widening gap between rhetoric and responsibility. NATO members are not legally required to join any member’s military operations that are not formally sanctioned by the alliance or not aimed at protecting the homelands of the membership. But they often do just that. Some NATO members joined the Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq on the theory that, in the post-9/11 environment, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein were dangers to all Western security. They followed the precedent set by America’s 1999 intervention in...

The American relationship with NATO has never been more strained. Despite decades upon decades of propping up Europe's defense while its leaders spend all their money on welfare programs and mass migration, the United States is now having to fight over something as mundane as transiting the airspace of its alleged "allies."According to President Donald Trump, France denied the use of its airspace to American cargo planes transporting munitions to Israel as part of Operation Epic Fury. 🚨Trump: “The Country of France wouldn’t let planes headed to Israel, loaded up with military supplies, fly over French territory. France has been...