Free Republic

Speaking on FRANCE 24, French economist Jean Tirole advocated Scandinavian-style labour market policies and government reform as a way of preserving France’s social model. Hours after he won the economics Nobel Prize, Tirole said he felt “sad” the French economy was experiencing difficulties despite having “a lot of assets”. “We haven’t succeeded in France to undertake the labour market reforms that are similar to those in Germany, Scandinavia and so on,” he said in telephone interview from the French city of Toulouse, where he teaches. France is plagued by record unemployment and Tirole described the French job market as “catastrophic”...

A U.S. national was shot dead and another wounded in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh on Tuesday, police said, in what appeared to be the first killing of a Westerner in years in a gun attack in the kingdom. Police later shot and wounded an assailant and then arrested him, said the brief statement, carried by state media. “The attack resulted in the killing of one person and wounding another and it turned out they were of American citizenship,” it said. Police said the attack happened when the two stopped their vehicle at a filling station in an eastern district of...

The Dutch public prosecutor said on Tuesday that motorbike gang members who have reportedly joined Kurds battling the Islamic State group in Iraq are not necessarily committing any crime. "Joining a foreign armed force was previously punishable, now it's no longer forbidden," public prosecutor spokesman Wim de Bruin told AFP. "You just can't join a fight against the Netherlands," he told AFP after reports emerged that Dutch bikers from the No Surrender gang were fighting IS insurgents alongside Kurds in northern Iraq. The head of No Surrender, Klaas Otto, told state broadcaster NOS that three members who traveled to near...

Johan Cosar is the type of foreign fighter you rarely hear about - rather than swearing allegiance to jihad, he's pledged to defend his ancestral homeland until the "Islamic State" is eliminated. "It's bulls*it. Anyone who says such a thing should spend his next holiday here in Syria and see what we're doing," Cosar, a Swiss battalion commander of the Syriac Military Council - a rebel group fighting against "Islamic State" (IS) forces - said in response to an array of online comments alleging that he would be capable of killing people once he returned home. "I didn't do anything...

Turkish exploration for hydrocarbon reserves in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ), and particularly in the area south of the island, is a major – though not unexpected – provocation by Ankara, undaunted by the cessation of peace talks announced by Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiadis on Tuesday. The Greek government’s support for Cyprus on this issue offers little comfort given that the American State Department and the British Foreign Office issued statements recognizing the Cypriot government’s right to exploit hydrocarbon deposits in its EEZ before the exploration even began, while at the same time adding that both the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot...

EL SALVADOR (CBS SF) — An earthquake registering a preliminary magnitude of 7.4 struck off the coast of El Salvador Monday evening near La Union, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s automated seismograph alert network. The quake struck at an estimated depth of 70 KM below the earth’s surface. Deeper quakes are less noticeable while a shallow quake–in the 0 to 40 mile depth range–can feel much stronger than their actual reported magnitude. Quakes just below the earth’s surface, in the 0 to 10 miles range, can cause even more damage at lower magnitudes. No tsunami threat was expected.

The construction of the nuclear power plant in Akkuyu will start next spring, Turkish Energy Minister Taner Yıldız stated in a press conference on Oct. 10. “We want to break ground for the Akkuyu nuclear plant in March or April,” Yıldız said, at a meeting where he also hosted Turkish students set to travel to Russia for nuclear engineering training. The nuclear plant, which is to be located near Akkuyu in the southern province of Mersin on the Mediterranean coast, will require investment worth $22 billion, Yıldız added. While the plant’s foundations will be dug in 2015, construction of its...

Aerial view of Saint Maurice's abbey. Photo: Thomas Jantscher/Abaaye de Saint-Maurice Switzerland’s abbey of Saint Maurice, the oldest Christian monastery still in operation in the western world, kicked off a year of celebrations on Sunday to mark its 1,500th anniversary. Federal Interior Minister Alain Berset and the head of the abbey, Monsignor Joseph Roduit, presided over ceremonies at the monastery’s basilica in Saint Maurice, a town in the canton of Valais. Other notables at the event included the head of the Valais cantonal government, Jean-Michel Cina, and former Swiss president Pascal Couchepin. Built against a cliff on a historic route...

Since 1901, Alfred Nobel has decreed the Peace Prize should be adjudged by a committee of five, selected by the Norwegian Parliament. This still holds true and The Local looks at who will decide one of the world's most prestigious awards. The members of the Nobel committee are chosen by the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) for a six year tenure, with the possibility of re-election. Every third year respectively two and three members are elected. The members of the Nobel Committee currently are: Thorbjørn Jagland (born 1950). Head of the committee. Member of the committee since 2009. Represents the Labour Party....

So many men are eager to prepare for the priesthood at Heiligenkreuz Abbey in Lower Austria that they are having to be housed in temporary blue container units in the garden. With the theological college bursting at the seams it has installed 12 of the containers, which are small and not very attractive but are reportedly quite comfortable. The number of applicants wishing to take a theology diploma has quadrupled in 15 years, from 62 to 242.Currently the abbey is home to 37 seminarians, many of whom are "late bloomers" for the priesthood, with backgrounds as psychologists, teachers, civil servants,...

YAOUNDE, Oct. 11 (Xinhua) -- Freed Chinese workers who were kidnapped by suspected Boko Haram militants arrived in the Cameroonian capital on Saturday, said a Xinhua reporter at the scene. The ten Chinese workers arrived at Yaounde Airport on Saturday morning onboard a plane chartered by the Cameroonian government. The ex-hostages, who appeared to be in healthy conditions, were received at the airport by Chinese Ambassador Wo Ruidi and Cameroonian government officials. The Chinese workers were found missing and believed to be taken by the Nigerian Islamist rebels on May 16 after an attack at a Chinese work site in...

A crucial military meeting in the United States bringing together the highest-ranking commanders in a global anti-ISIL coalition will meet next week without Turkey’s top soldier after the chief of General Staff elected to stay home due to developments on the Turkish-Syrian border. Turkish diplomatic and military sources confirmed that Lt. Gen. Erdal Öztürk, the head of the Chief of Staff’s Operation Division, will represent Turkey at the meeting that will take place on Oct. 13 and 14 in the U.S. instead of his superior, Necdet Özel. The General Staff said in a statement Oct. 11 on its official website...

1- WHAT IS HAPPENING IN TURKEY? * At least 18 people were killed and scores of protesters, as well as policemen, were injured in clashes throughout Turkey on Oct. 7. The highest toll was in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır with eight deaths. Other eastern provinces including Van, Batman, Siirt, Muş, Mardin, Şanlurfa, Bitlis, Adıyaman, Hakkari, Tunceli and Şırnak also witnessed protests that led to casualties and arrests. * Thirty people, including eight policemen, were injured in Istanbul, while 98 protesters were detained, according to the Istanbul governorate. A group of masked protesters barricaded a road in Ankara before being...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded an apology from U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, if his reported comments about Turkey's "mistakes that paved the way for the rise of the jihadists" were true. "If Biden told these words, then he will be history for me. I never uttered such remarks," Erdogan said after the morning prayer for Eid al-Adha--the festival of sacrifice observed by Muslims all over the world--in Istanbul on early Oct. 4. "President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal...

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted mistakes that paved the way for the rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). "President Erdogan told me, he is an old friend, said you were right, we let too many people through, now we are trying to seal the border," Biden said during a speech on foreign policy at Harvard Kennedy School on Oct. 2. While speaking to the students for nearly an hour and a half, Biden defended the U.S. foreign policy, stressing that the White House was not late...

An employee of Japan's nursing care goods maker Unicare demonstrates the "tranquility chair" at the International Home Care and Rehabilitation exhibition in Tokyo on Wednesday. AFPThere are times in everyone’s life when only a hug will do. Now one Japanese company has come up with a chair that’s always ready to give a comforting cuddle. The “tranquility chair” is built in the shape of a larger-than-life fabric doll with a friendly face and a fetching hat, but more importantly, it has long arms that wrap around the user in an affectionate embrace. “It makes you feel safe. Anyone can use...

The New York Times has announced plans to cut 100 newsroom jobs and close down a high-profile opinion app that has failed to attract readers in the three months since its launch. Arthur Sulzberger Jr, the newspaper’s publisher, and Mark Thompson, its chief executive, said: “The job losses are necessary to control our costs and to allow us to continue to invest in the digital future of the New York Times, but we know that they will be painful for the individuals affected and for their colleagues.” The news organisation will also cut a smaller number of jobs in its...

Iran is to give a military grant to the Lebanese Army, the head of Iran's national security council said on Sept. 30, boosting security forces that are already backed by Saudi Arabia and the United States. The Lebanase Army has been stepping up efforts to prevent Sunni Muslim fighters from Syria entering Lebanese border towns. Last month, the northern town of Arsal was the scene of the deadliest spillover of fighting in the three-year-old civil war in Syria. The rise of hardline militants in Syria such as Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) presents a shared foe for...

Boeing on Monday said it would move most of its defense services and support work out of Washington state to other U.S. cities, affecting the jobs of about 2,000 of its 5,200 defense employees in the Puget Sound region. The changes are part of ongoing efforts by Boeing to streamline its defense business, and will not affect its P-8A spy plane or KC-46 aerial refueling tanker programs. Both of those programs are based on commercial jetliners made in the area. The transition could take three years to complete. Boeing would shift as many affected workers as possible to the company's...

One person was injured on Sept. 26 after a group of jihadist sympathizers attacked students who had opened a stand at Istanbul University to denounce the brutality of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The masked attackers, who were filmed attacking with sticks studded with nails inside a foyer in one of the school’s buildings, were allegedly affiliated to the Muslim Youth organization. One student was apparently injured in the head by a soda bottle allegedly hurled by the attackers. The assailants, three of whom were reportedly detained after the attack, also tore down a pancard that...