Free Republic

Spain and Portugal achieved net zero on Monday, but not the way anyone would want to achieve net zero: By going back to the cavepeople times with no electricity. According to the New York Times:A major power outage hit Spain and Portugal on Monday afternoon, abruptly shutting down daily activities, halting trains and subways, cutting off traffic lights, closing stores and canceling or delaying some flights.Hours after the power shut off around 12:30 p.m. Central European time, stranding tens of millions of people across the Iberian Peninsula, officials remained at a loss as to the cause, though several denied any...

Inter-gang rivalries have led to an alarming rise in migrant violence, as GB News can exclusively reveal eight small boat migrants arrived in the UK with stab injuries in the past 12 months. The boiling tensions come as thousands of migrants converge on northern France ahead of an expected huge summer surge in small boat crossings. Just this week, one migrant was stabbed to death and two others seriously injured in separate incidents around Calais. One senior maritime security source told GB News the increase in violence was "extremely concerning". He added: "We're seeing gang rivalries, disputes between different factions,...

Thousands of people took part in an anti-immigration rally in Dublin city centre on Saturday, alongside a smaller counter-demonstration. Both passed off without any major incidents with gardaí acting as a cordon between both groups on O’Connell Street. The anti-immigration protest, described by organisers as an Easter Rising commemoration to pay respect to “those who fought and gave their lives to preserve the Irish nation and create the Irish Republic” began at 2pm at the Garden of Remembrance on Parnell Square. United Against Racism, supported by a number of organisations and members of Opposition parties including Sinn Féin, Labour, People...

US Vice President JD Vance warned Wednesday that Moscow and Kyiv must strike a deal or Washington will end its efforts to reach a ceasefire. 'We've issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it's time for them to either say yes, or for the United States to walk away from this process,' Vance told reporters in India, where he is on a four-day visit. -snip- 'It's now time, I think, to take, if not the final step, one of the final steps, which is, at a broad level, the party saying we're going to...

Well, the end of the war in Ukraine could be very near—and for the first time since this whole expensive nightmare started, there’s an actual adult in the room. And that’s because President Trump is back in the White House. The truth is, Ukraine has always been one of the most corrupt countries in the world—and their leader is leading the pack. OCCRP: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his partners in comedy production owned a network of offshore companies related to their business based in the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus, and Belize. Zelensky’s current chief aide, Serhiy Shefir, as well...

Tariffs of up to 45 per cent on Chinese-made electric cars imported into the European Union may be replaced with a new ‘minimum pricing’ system after previously stalled discussions between the two trading partners were re-started. A ‘minimum pricing’ arrangement – also referred to as ‘price floors’ or ‘price undertakings’ – between the European Union (EU) and China would see tariffs abolished and set minimum prices agreed upon. According to Reuters, European trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic has said any new policy would have to be as effective as tariffs, given the approach has previously only been applied on ‘homogenous commodities’....

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates for the seventh time in a year, looking to prop up an already struggling economy that will take a large hit from US tariffs. The bank announced a cut of one-quarter of a percentage point, which brings its benchmark deposit rate down from 2.5% to 2.25%. The move will immediately benefit tracker mortgage customers and put downward pressure on other rates. The ECB has been lowering borrowing costs as post-pandemic price pressures retreat and recent trade-related turmoil on global markets is adding to the case for further policy easing. […] While US...

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel said Wednesday it would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, where a relentless military offensive has turned the Palestinian territory into a "mass grave", a medical charity reported. Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people. "Israel's policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said in a statement. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian...

The EU needs to strive for progress in building its own defense capability and improving its competitiveness, Ursula von der Leyen saidBERLIN, April 15. /TASS/. European Commission (EC) President Ursula von der Leyen has asserted that a renewal of the European Union is needed so it can actively participate in the shaping of a new world order. "We need another, new European Union that is ready to go out into the big wide world and to play a very active role in shaping this new world order that is coming," she said in an interview with Die Zeit. That said,...

Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelensky shares the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for "millions of people dead" in the Ukraine war. "When you start a war you got to know you can win," he said, also blaming former US President Joe Biden for the conflict. "Millions of people dead because of three people," Trump said on Monday. "Let's say Putin number one, let's say Biden who had no idea what the hell he was doing, number two, and Zelensky." It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, but not "millions", of people have been killed or injured on all...

The European Commission is issuing burner phones to officials traveling to the United States amid fears of espionage in Trump’s America. It’s the kind of security measure typically saved for trips to China or the Ukraine, where the fear of IT surveillance is high. But three European Commissioners will test out burner phones and basic laptops at International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington next week, sources told the Financial Times. The move from the European Commission, the primary executive arm of the European Union, marks a new era of American-European relations, which have all but dissipated since...

Europe is once again talking about forming its own defense alliance. The idea of a European army—discussed on and off since the early days of the Cold War—was revived in February by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president claims that Donald Trump’s retraction of military support for Ukraine and ambivalence towards the EU shows that the bloc urgently needs its own military unit. Zelensky has reignited a debate that has failed to generate consensus within Europe, despite its long history.Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is the latest EU leader to echo Zelensky—and according to a YouGov poll conducted in 2022,...

Britain has watched President Trump’s tariffs with a mix of shock, fascination and queasy recognition. The country, after all, embarked on a similar experiment in economic isolationism when it voted to leave the European Union in 2016. Nearly nine years after the Brexit referendum, it is still reckoning with the costs.The lessons of that experience are suddenly relevant again as Mr. Trump uses a similar playbook to erect walls around the United States. Critics once described Brexit as the greatest act of economic self-harm by a Western country in the post-World War II era. It may now be getting a...

NATO is a corpse. All that remains is the grotesque performance art of a diplomatic zombie stumbling from summit to summit, mouthing tired clichés about “shared values” and “burden sharing,” even as its core strategic logic lies rotting beneath the surface. The Atlantic Alliance, once the steel scaffolding of Western security, has become a hollow ritual. Its military readiness is an illusion. Its political cohesion is fraying. Its future, if it has one, lies not in revival—but in reinvention or replacement. This is not a triumphalist declaration from the Kremlin or Beijing. It is a sober diagnosis, grounded in realism...

After previously saying her number one concern about President Trump’s tariff program was Beijing dumping all their excess products into the EU at a discount, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announces she is coordinating the tariff response with China.Apparently, the EU recognizes the ideological alignment of support from Canada just isn’t going to be enough to pressure President Trump and retain leverage into the U.S. market. This is quite a remarkable admission from von der Leyen all things considered. [STATEMENT]President von der Leyen held today a phone call with Premier Li Qiang to discuss the state of EU-China...

Ferdinand Porsche became widely known as the brilliant engineer behind the bestselling Volkswagen Beetle and some of Porsche’s first sports cars. But like his creations, the German industrialist had a dark side that is impossible to separate from his technical achievements. During the Second World War, Porsche’s manufacturing business, along with many others, became a key pillar of the Third Reich – helping to sustain Adolf Hitler’s war effort by churning out tens of thousands of militarized versions of what would later be renamed the Beetle. […] Yet amid a new era of European instability, the Porsche clan has revealed...

Financial experts are seeing a spike in affluent working Americans looking to resettle in Europe. They say it's time for Europe to prepare for their arrival. Russian-American *Julia had wanted to leave the United States for a couple of years, but the start of President Donald Trump’s second term forced her to start taking the idea seriously. "I noticed people who are immigrants [like me], they were a lot more worried after the election happened," she told Euronews Next. "We saw the warning signs right away". The anesthesiologist worked on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis in New York City...

BRUSSELS, April 6 (Reuters) - European Union countries will seek to present a united front in the coming days against U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs, likely approving a first set of targeted countermeasures on up to $28 billion of U.S. imports from dental floss to diamonds. Such a move would mean the EU joining China and Canada in imposing retaliatory tariffs on the United States in an early escalation of what some fear will become a global trade war, making goods more expensive for billions of consumers and pushing economies around the world into recession.

French President Emmanuel Macron called on Thursday for European companies to suspend planned investment in the United States after US President Donald Trump announced sweeping global tariffs on American imports. “Investments to come or investments announced in recent weeks should be suspended until things are clarified with the United States,” Macron said during a meeting with French industry representatives. “What would be the message if big European actors invest billions of euros in the US economy at the very moment they are hitting us?” he asked. […] The comments come weeks after French shipping firm CMA CGM announced plans to...

Marie Le Pen was just banned from running for president of France for five years. That’s more like forever. Le Pen is deemed a criminal and sentenced to wear an electronic tag for a couple years. A French court claims she embezzled. But why would we believe a French court any more than we believe a Manhattan or D.C. district court? Trump’s been through those wringers. Macron and his mates did to Le Pen what Romanian elites did to Calin Georgescu, the populist candidate for president there. Reportedly, he was the frontrunner. If you smell a rat, you’re right. French...