Free Republic

Conventional agriculture is causing enormous environmental damage in Germany, warns a study by the country’s Federal Environment Agency, saying a transition to organic farming and stricter regulation is urgently needed. EurActiv Germany reports. Spanning over 50% of the country, agriculture takes up by far the biggest amount of land in the country, and is one of its most important economic sectors. But intensive farming still harms the environment to an alarming extent, according to a study conducted by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The use of pesticides and fertilizers, as well as intensive animal husbandry, have a negative impact on...

Don’t look now but ISIS fighters are just a few short miles away from Bashar al-Assad’s Presidential Palace in Syria after taking control of the Yarmouk refugee camp in Damascus where some 18,000 are trapped in what the UN calls a “beyond inhumane” situation. The camp, which has been under siege by the Assad regime for years came under attack by ISIS earlier this month who reports indicate may be working alongside al-Qaeda’s Syrian arm al-Nusra in what would be a break with recent precedent. Some Palestinian factions — who, alongside the Free Syria Army are battling ISIS for control...

The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is one of the icons of the Cold War - a self-contained and sufficient town buried under the Rockies meant to be impervious to a Soviet nuclear barrage. It was home to the North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), scanning the skies for Russian missiles and the military command and control center of the United States in the event of World War Three. The high tech base entered popular culture with appearances in the 1983 Cold War thriller War Games and 1994's Stargate - which imagined the complex as a clandestine home for intergalactic travel. It shut...

PARIS -- We're witnessing arguably the most unfocused and undisciplined U.S. foreign policy in history under President Barack Obama. If I'm seeing it and you're seeing it, then it's a safe bet that America's opponents are seeing it -- and attempting to exploit it for long-term gain. What might that exploitation look like? Take a dog to a park and toss some sticks around, one after another and in different directions. Watch Fido zigzag around, bark at all the sticks in frustration, fail to retrieve one in favor of running after another. Agence France Presse reported concerns last week over...

…apprehended while illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas on February 12, 2015. …history as a military trainer, his speaking several languages, including Russian, and his having lived in Crimea, according to one of the leaked documents.

Greece has demanded nearly €279bn in reparations from Germany, more than the value of its current bail-out, as the cash-strapped country continues to pursue compensation for crimes carried out by the Third Reich. A parliamentary committee established by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras put an official number on the claim, which includes the cost of a forced Nazi loan made by the Bank of Greece and the return of archaeological treasures. Greece suffered a brutal occupation at the hands of the Third Reich in 1941, with over 40,000 people starving to death in Athens alone. SNIP--- Berlin moved to quickly to...

YENAKIEVE, Ukraine – On a recent spring morning, an important visitor watched Russian-backed rebels conduct infantry maneuvers on the sunlit training grounds outside this town in eastern Ukraine. "The general is very pleased," rebel battalion commander Ostap Cherny told his troops, referring to the figure in camouflage encircled by five armed guards. The man -- almost certainly a Russian military officer -- became alarmed when he saw two journalists approach. His entourage shielded him from all sides, warning that photos were forbidden, and the group soon sped off in a four-car motorcade, with the "general" safely inside a black Toyota...

Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church "Only after the ISIS militants began terrible mass executions of Christians the world community began speaking about this problem out loud. It happened only after the number of Christians in Iraq decreased by times and almost no Christians remained in Lybia and after the Christian community in Egypt had a hard time. The world community has at last begun speaking out against the background of general instability and uncertainty, against the background of the Arab Spring developments, against the background of what is going on now in Syria, where militants in the occupied...

Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna thanks the governments of China and Russia, which helped in the evacuation. “The situation is under control, we have information that for now everything is going well,” he said. Russia air lifted 20 Polish citizens from the capital of Yemen, Sana’a to Moscow on board two aircraft, while the Chinese navy took four Polish citizens across a narrow strait from Aden to Djibuti. Yemen has recently been invaded by a Saudi-led coalition set up to dislodge the Shia Houthis who have taken over the capital city. (an)

Russian ships docked at what was once a secret Norwegian naval base in the Arctic have prompted concern from the NATO country's former top military leaders, anxious about its resurgent eastern neighbour roaming nearby. Norway's jagged Arctic coastline has regained its strategic importance since tensions between Russia and NATO members have spiked to levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Bishkek, April 3, Interfax - Russia will continue raising the issue of the protection of Christians in the UN, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said. "No one was going to ignore this issue [of Christians' protection]. It was raised in the meeting of the [UN] Human Rights Council and a statement was adopted, which was signed by 65 countries. It was initiated by Russia, Lebanon and the Vatican with Armenia's support," he said responding to a question about the possible support by Russia of the initiative to protection Christians in the light of the situation in Kenya. "This issue was...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) is the only major Republican likely 2016 presidential candidate who hasn't weighed in on the controversy over Indiana's "religious freedom" law that erupted this week — and his explanation for avoiding the issue is questionable.

Greece is drawing up drastic plans to nationalise the country's banking system and introduce a parallel currency to pay bills unless the eurozone takes steps to defuse the simmering crisis and soften its demands. Sources close to the ruling Syriza party said the government is determined to keep public services running and pay pensions as funds run critically low. It may be forced to take the unprecedented step of missing a payment to the International Monetary Fund next week.

Russian Navy commander Admiral Viktor Chirkov's claim that Russia will build a new, super-sized aircraft carrier exceeding 85,000 tonnes has been met with scepticism by analysts. Many have questioned how realistic this ambition might be, given the current limitations of Russia's shipbuilding industry in particular and defence industry in general. The proposed supercarrier, announced by Adm Chirkov on 23 March, would be a quantum leap in capability and size over the Russian Navy's single existing carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov , which at 43,000 tonnes is less than half the displacement of the US Navy's Nimitz-class carriers. The new ship, which would...

National Front party founder again insists Nazi gas chambers were just a 'detail'; daughter and party head distances herself. The founder of France's far-right National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, reiterated his assertion Thursday that Nazi gas chambers were a "detail" of World War II, prompting condemnation from rights groups and his daughter. Le Pen told a French TV station he did not regret making the statement repeatedly over nearly three decades, earning convictions for hate speech along the way, and then said it again. "I have said what I believed. Gas chambers were a detail of the war, unless...

President Putin is using the threat of a nuclear showdown over the Baltic states to force Nato to back away from Russia’s border, according to notes of a secret meeting between intelligence figures from Moscow and Washington. Western security chiefs are braced for the Kremlin to begin a series of “destabilising actions” in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania that would directly challenge Nato’s mutual defence pledge. These could involve civil disturbances involving local ethnic Russians,

All but one of Crimea’s independent Tatar-language media outlets, including several popular children’s television channels, will be shut down tomorrow as the midnight deadline for re-registration expires under Russian law, Amnesty International has warned. The Crimean Tatar-language publications, websites and broadcasting outlets, although they claim to have submitted their applications for re-registration in good time, have been “arbitrarily” refused re-registration, or not heard back from licensing authorities after applying last April, according to Amnesty. If they do not close, they face hefty fines and even criminal prosecutions. In stark contrast, Russian-language media outlets reportedly received their licenses shortly after applying.

Analysts following what appears to be a developing political crisis in Russia suspect the growing tensions engulfing the Kremlin may be a product of the workings of Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov, once a loyal ally to President Vladimir Putin. On February 27, a gunman murdered opposition leader Boris Nemtsov in Moscow just feet away from the Kremlin. Russians and international media immediately suspected it was an inside job, especially when the Kremlin revealed the security cameras were not working due to maintenance. Eyebrows raised higher when the Kremlin arrested four Chechens for the murder. One man, Zaur Dadayev, confessed to...

MARIUPOL, Ukraine—As part of a joint Department of Defense-State Department effort to bolster Ukraine’s internal defense capabilities, the United States will be sending Army paratroopers to train Ukraine’s National Guard, a U.S. Army Europe spokesman confirmed to The Daily Signal Monday. U.S. Army Europe spokesman Donald Wrenn said paratroopers from the U.S. Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade, which is based in Vicenza, Italy, will train six Ukrainian National Guard companies on internal security and territorial defense beginning at the end April. “There will also be some training for headquarters personnel,” Wrenn said, “focusing on the continued professionalization of Ukrainian staff members.”...

On March 10, the Hoover Institution held a roundtable discussion on “Perspectives on Russia’s Hybrid War on Ukraine and US Foreign Policy."… General Mattis noted that Russia at first hoped that it could occupy East Ukraine without loss of life as it did in Crimea but was surprised by the Ukrainian forces fighting back with vigor. Russian military had to increase its logistic and military support for its rebel forces and then, in August, had to use regular troops to save the encircled Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” from defeat. With regular Russian forces involved, Ukrainian forces have been outmatched,...