Free Republic

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, has accused the EU of declaring “enmity” on his country as next week’s centenary commemorations of the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire descend into bitter rows over what to call them. Both the European Parliament and Pope Francis this week referred to the killings as a genocide, a term recognised by much of the rest of the world but fiercely disputed by Turkey. The European decision prompted a furious response from Mr Erdogan. “Such decisions are nothing but expressions of enmity against Turkey by abusing Armenians,” he said while on a visit to...

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...

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.

You have to start with the premise that the Prime Minister of Israel chooses his words carefully. Unlike our president who is more enchanted with the sound of his own voice than Narcissus was with his reflection. Netanyahu was asked by Chris Wallace on Wallace's Fox News Sunday show about the terrorist attack on a bus in Bulgaria that slaughtered five Israeli tourists. Bibi was well beyond adamant that the perpetrators were Hezbollah, supported by Iran. On this point, the prime minister was quite forceful. Wallace then asked Netanyahu if he had shared any of his recently acquired information with...

Greek Defence Minister Panos Kammenos said that if Greece failed to get a new debt agreement with the euro zone, it could always look elsewhere for help. "What we want is a deal. But if there is no deal - hopefully (there will be) - and if we see that Germany remains rigid and wants to blow apart Europe, then we have the obligation to go to Plan B. Plan B is to get funding from another source," he told Greek television show that ran in to early Tuesday. "It could the United States at best, it could be Russia,...

The German government stuck to its view on Monday that a third haircut, or debt restructuring, for Greece was out of the question but opened the door to a possible extension of Greece's current bailout programme.

he new far-left government in Greece dropped a bombshell on its first day in office by abjuring an EU statement on Russia. It said in a press communique on Tuesday (27 January): “the aforementioned statement was released without the prescribed procedure to obtain consent by the member states and particularly without ensuring the consent of Greece”. “In this context, it is underlined that Greece does not consent to this statement”. It added that its new PM, Alexis Tsipras, expressed “discontent” in a phone call to EU foreign relations chief Federica Mogherini. The EU statement on Russia, published on Tuesday morning,...

credit the world’s various political leftists for being brilliant at one thing. They have managed to assemble a coalition of interest groups whose vested interests should probably cause them to chase each other around in the street armed with shotguns. Nowhere is that awesome class divide among the left on greater display than in Europe where the Parlor Pinks infest Davos and the Street Marxians have taken electoral power in Greece. If you were to ask both Jeffrey Greene and newly-minted Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras whether they felt society should be unfettered by larger government or directed for its...

Despite all the fear-mongering by Nea Demokratia (ND), Syriza's victory over the incumbent is dramatically larger than expected (exit polls indicate a potential 12 point margin vs 7 point spreads in the run-up). However, as JPMorgan details, the fear-mongery was very evident in bank deposit runs as proxied outflows surge EUR8 billion last week - more than all of December and the rest of January combined...Via JPMorgan Flows & LiquidityGreek deposit outflows rise sharply this week The monthly Bank of Greece balance sheet data for the month of December revealed a significant increase in Greek bank ECB borrowing which...

The vote totals are still being finalized but the latest show the SYRIZA Party at 150 of the 300 seats in the Greek parliament with 36.3 percent of the vote. This is one vote short of an overall majority but multiple media sources including "The Wall Street Journal" are reporting that the conservative Independent Greeks, who broke away from the New Democracy (Republican type) Party in 2011 and are firmly against the EU austerity program will join up to stablilize the government. The Independent Greeks (ANEL) won 4.7 percent of the popular vote and 13 seats. The SYRIZA-ANEL alliance would...

Greeks began voting on Sunday in an election expected to bring to power the radical leftist Syriza party, which has pledged to take on international lenders and roll back painful austerity measures imposed during years of economic crisis. Barring a huge upset, victory for Syriza, which has led opinion polls for months, would produce the first euro zone government openly committed to cancelling the austerity terms of its EU and IMF-backed bailout programme. After its most severe crisis since the fall of the military junta in 1974, Greece's economy has shrunk by some 25 percent, thousands of businesses have closed,...

Exit polls suggest a historic victory for the anti-austerity Syriza party in Greece's closely fought general election. One poll suggested Syriza took 35.5% of the votes, and the other suggested it took 39.5%, well ahead of ruling New Democracy party on 23%-27%. It is unclear whether Syriza has enough votes to govern the country alone. Syriza's Alexis Tsipras has pledged to renegotiate Greece's debt arrangement with international creditors....

Exit polls suggest a historic victory for the anti-austerity Syriza party in Greece's general election. The polls indicate that Syriza took between 36% and 38% of the total vote, with the ruling New Democracy party a distant second with 26%-28%. It is unclear whether Syriza has enough votes to govern the country alone.

Voting in Sunday's much-watched Greek elections has ended, and exit polls suggest that the far-left Syriza party has captured nearly 40 percent of the vote. While this may not be enough to ensure a parliamentary majority in Greece's electoral system, it's now clear that Alexis Tsipras, a fiery 40-year-old once considered too radical for national politics, will lead the next Greek government. Tsipras has promised to end Greece's "austerity program," a series of spending cuts and tax hikes designed to reduce the country's enormous bailout debt, which equals 175 percent of its GDP. Freed from this burden, Tsipras argues, the...

European socialists are united with radical Muslims by a “mutual hatred for Judeo-Christian culture,” which is why they continue to defend failed multicultural policies that are promoting the Islamification of Europe, says Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. “It’s called the Red-Green Alliance, red being the socialists and the green being Islam. There’s sort of a mutual interest on both sides to deconstruct the Judeo-Christian culture in Europe,” he explained. “What the socialists don’t realize is that the Muslims hate them even more than they hate the Judeo-Christians, and so once it works out to...

In the wake of the most recent attacks in Paris, the airwaves have been full of myths about Muslim communities in Europe. However, history tells a rather different tale: Muslims are far from alien from European culture; in fact, they are central to it. The links between Europe and Islam date back to the very first generation of Muslims. We know of the famed rule of Muslim Iberia (now known as Spain and Portugal), which created a thriving multi-religious society, something that was then a novelty in Europe. Several hundred years earlier, after Muslim Spain had begun, you might have...

Talks with troika the main test It will require a change of stance on many issues for Alexis Tsipras to become Greece’s version of Lula By Dimitris KontogiannisThe left-wing SYRIZA party’s triumph in the Greek national elections sends a strong message across the eurozone that excessive austerity will have political and social repercussions if pursued for a long time. But SYRIZA will have a tough task convincing the country’s official lenders to continue funding and adopt its policy proposals, many of which are at odds with the current adjustment program. A compromise seems to be the best solution, but requires...

The far-left Syriza party, the winner of Greece's election, has formed an anti-austerity coalition with a right-wing party, the Greek Independents. Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has taken the oath of office as the new prime minister. He has vowed to renegotiate Greece's bailout, worth 240 bn euros (179 bn pounds, $268 bn). European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker congratulated Mr. Tsipras while reminding him of the challenge of "ensuring fiscal responsibility.".......... With nearly all of the votes counted in Sunday's poll, Syriza looks set to have 149 seats, just two short of an absolute majority. The Greek Independents are projected to...

In Greece, the far-left Syriza party has won a stunning victory. Under the leadership of charismatic populist Alexis Tsipras, it has claimed around 150 parliamentary seats and defeated the governing centrist New Democracy party. Across Europe, leftists are elated. They see this as a historic turning point, the moment when they can put a stop to the austerity-through-spending-cuts approach. And to some degree, they’re right. There’s no question that voters have rewarded a far-left party for its far-left platform. Just consider what Syriza proposes: significant increases in government spending, a rise in the minimum wage and in pensions, and a...

Greek radicals sought on Monday to redraw the political map of Europe, forming a coalition government of left and right, united only by their desire to defy the European financial establishment and shrug off the constraints of austerity. The coalition, led by 40-year-old Alexis Tsipras, was expected to dispatch its new finance minister to Brussels in the next few days to seek a fundamental renegotiation of Greece’s economic bailout package, vowing that “the end of humiliation has come”. Tsipras and his Syriza party have promised to replace the austerity programmes imposed by Greece’s international creditors with policies aimed at helping...