Free Republic

Core EU powers France and Germany vowed Monday to accelerate eurozone integration, with a new bilateral panel to work out ways to kickstart the reform process. “We’ve been talking about progress in eurozone integration for years, but things are not moving fast enough,” said France’s new Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire in Berlin after talks with his German counterpart Wolfgang Schäuble. “We have now decided to get things going more quickly and further in a very concrete manner,” he said. Schäuble agreed that “we are convinced that Germany and France must take a leading role” in strengthening the European Union...

The lineage of humans and apes possibly split at a point several hundred thousand years earlier than currently assumed — and in the eastern Mediterranean rather than sub-Saharan Africa, a German research team claim. After studying the only two fossils found that belong to the hominid Graecopithecus freybergi, researchers at the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) in Tübingen came to the remarkable conclusion announced on Monday, and set to be published in the PLOS One magazine. Hominids include humans and our ancestors, plus apes and their predecessors. Scientists have still to definitively prove when the lineage of...

An influential state-run newspaper applauded China’s anti-espionage efforts on Monday after the New York Times reported Beijing had killed or imprisoned up to 20 CIA sources, hobbling U.S. spying operations. The Chinese killed at least a dozen people providing information to the Central Intelligence Agency between 2010 and 2012, dismantling a network that was years in the making, the New York Times reported. The paper cited two senior former U.S. officials. NBC News was not immediately able to independently verify the report. China’s Global Times, which is published by the official People’s Daily, said in an editorial in its Chinese...

Improper payments by the federal government are costing taxpayers billions of dollars a year — more than a trillion, if you add them up over the years, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told the Senate Budget Committee on Wednesday. “These are payments that should not have been made or were made in the wrong amounts,” Dodaro said in his opening statement. The problem is growing, he said, from $125 billion in 2014; to $137 billion in 2015; to the most recent estimate of $144 billion in 2016. “This includes estimates for 112 programs at 22 federal agencies, so it is a...

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that Berlin may pull its troops from Turkey following a recent deterioration in relations. The chancellor’s latest warning comes after Turkey denied visas to German lawmakers who wanted to visit troops at the Incirlik air base, located near Adana in south Turkey. “We will continue to talk with Turkey, but in parallel we will have to explore other ways of fulfilling our mandate,” Merkel said at a press conference on Monday. “That means looking at alternatives to İncirlik, and one alternative among others is Jordan,” she said. …

Pope Francis will offer his thoughts to the camera in a new documentary by Oscar-nominated director Wim Wenders, its backers have announced at the Cannes film festival. “A Man Of His Word” will see the Argentine pontiff respond to questions submitted from people around the world, with US production company Focus Features billing the film as “the first in which a Pope addresses the audience directly, discussing topics such as ecology, immigration, consumerism and social justice”. German director Wenders, who has been nominated for three Oscars including for his Cuban music documentary “Buena Vista Social Club”, said Francis was “a...

A co-founder of Twitter says he’s sorry if the popular social media platform helped put Donald Trump in the White House, as the president has suggested. In an interview with The New York Times, Evan Williams says Twitter’s role in Trump’s populist rise is “a very bad thing.” The president has credited Twitter with his election to the highest office in the land. When confronted with that notion, Williams said: “If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry.” …

A black Texas congressman said Saturday that he’s been threatened with lynching by callers infuriated over him seeking impeachment of President Donald Trump. U.S. Rep. Al Green held a town hall meeting and played recordings of several threatening voicemails left at his offices in Houston and Washington, the Houston Chronicle reports . The seven-term Democrat told the crowd of about 100 people that he won’t be deterred. […] One male caller used a racial insult and threatened Green with “hanging from a tree” if he pursues impeachment. Another man left a message saying Green would be the one impeached after...

A new Gallup poll shows that only 24% of Americans believe the Bible is the “literal word” of God, which is a decline from the 1970s, but the survey also shows that the number of Americans who think the Bible is the “inspired word” of God, 47%, has stayed pretty steady over the last 40 years. In addition, an overwhelming majority of Americans, 71%, believe the Bible is a holy document, inspired by God or containing God’s own words. “Fewer than one in four Americans (24%) now believe the Bible is ‘the actual word of God, and is to be...

The EU foreign policy chief says Europe does “not see eye to eye” with the Trump administration on major issues such as trade, climate change and funding of U.N. agencies, but can “easily” work with the U.S. on Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Federica Mogherini spoke Saturday during a regional gathering of the World Economic Forum. Mogherini warned that threatened U.S. cuts in funding U.N. agencies “would create a major security issue worldwide, including in Europe.” …

Norbert Röttgen, the chairman of the German parliament’s foreign affairs committee, said in an interview on Thursday that although there has been lots of “ideological rhetoric” coming from the White House, President Donald Trump’s new administration is lacking after 100 days. “There isn’t any US foreign policy yet,” he told German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk in a radio interview. “This is, of course, a factor that is disturbing in its own right.” He added that the Trump administration is still lacking concrete trade policies, but most crucially, there are personnel problems within the US State department. “There’s still no sufficiently operational...

Journalists’ brains show a lower-than-average level of executive functioning, according to a new study, which means they have a below-average ability to regulate their emotions, suppress biases, solve complex problems, switch between tasks, and show creative and flexible thinking. The study, led by Tara Swart, a neuroscientist and leadership coach, analyzed 40 journalists from newspapers, magazines, broadcast, and online platforms over seven months. The participants took part in tests related to their lifestyle, health, and behavior. It was launched in association with the London Press Club, and the objective was to determine how journalists can thrive under stress. Each subject...

Italy’s Court of Cassation ruled on Monday that a Sikh man was not allowed to carry a knife considered sacred by his religion in public. Migrants have a duty to conform to local values in the society they choose to move to, the court said, even if those values are different from in their home country. The kirpan, a small knife or sword, is one of five religious articles many Sikhs carry with them at all times. But the legality of carrying the curved knife in public has been debated in several countries where Sikhs are a minority. Denmark became...

Women took to the streets of one of the poorest areas of Paris on Friday to protest at what they say has become an all-male “no-go zone”, where any female daring to venture out alone is subject to severe sexist harassment or worse. The district, whose streets are usually lined with large groups of young men of African and Arab origin, is located around La Chapelle metro station on the border of the 10th and 18th arrondissements in the northeast of the French capital. The current row over the alleged no-gone zone echoes a controversy widely reported by French and...

Conservative Ralph Norman has beaten the more centrist, establishment candidate for the Republican nomination for an open U.S. House seat in South Carolina and now faces the task of keeping the seat in GOP hands. The State Election Commission certified the results of this week’s runoff election after a recount Friday. Not a single vote changed from Tuesday’s count. Norman finished with a 221-vote win out of more than 35,000 ballots cast. Norman defeated Tommy Pope, the second-ranking Republican in the state House and a prosecutor who received national fame for prosecuting child killer Susan Smith nearly 23 years ago....

Laws in some European countries that impede migrant children from reuniting with their families or force them to leave when they turn 18 create a “huge security risk” by potentially turning young people to crime and extremism, the chief of Europe’s top human rights body said Friday. Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said such laws compel many young migrants facing uncertain futures to flee, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation from human traffickers who could push them into crime or the illicit sex trade. “This is causing a huge security risk for Europe,” Jagland said during an interview with...

Norwegian Islamist Arfan Bhatti has been remanded in custody for four weeks, suspected of involvement with a cache of weapons found in Oslo last week. Bhatti has appealed the decision of the authorities to hold him in custody, reports broadcaster NRK. Oslo District Court believes that there are several grounds on which to suspect that Bhatti may attempt to destroy evidence should he be released, according to the report. […] The Islamist, who has Pakistani parents, was born and brought up in Oslo, where he joined the Young Guns gang in the early 1990s. He later became radicalized, and was...

President Emmanuel Macron has had his first major spat with the media since taking power, after his team imposed restrictions on which journalists could travel with him on a trip to visit French troops stationed in west Africa. The move, which echoes similar conflicts over media coverage of Donald Trump’s presidency in the United States, sparked an angry joint response by more than 20 of the country’s top media outlets, including Le Monde newspaper, Agence France-Presse and state-owned broadcaster France 3. “In no case must the Elysée decide on those of us who are entitled or not to cover a...

Governors of all 50 states on Wednesday signed a pledge to reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, reports JTA. Organized by the American Jewish Committee, the Governors United Against BDS statement declares that “the goals of the BDS movement are antithetical to our values and the values of our respective states, our support for Israel as a vital U.S. ally, important economic partner and champion of freedom.” The statement does not commit the governors to specific actions, although signers “reaffirm our support for Israel as a vital U.S. ally, important economic partner and champion of freedom.”...

Altena, a town in western Germany, was on Wednesday honored by Chancellor Angela Merkel for its achievements in integrating refugees. It was the first place to win the National Integration Prize, and received €10,000 for its efforts. The North Rhine-Westphalian town set up a program which aimed to successfully integrate every refugee that was sent there. The program, called “From refugee to Altena co-citizen”, ensured that every refugee family which arrived in the town of 17,300 people was given a “mentor” who helped them settle in, according to n-tv. The new arrivals were also given an apartment within a community...