Free Republic

The president of Bosnia’s autonomous Serb Republic has accused the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo of using its development agency to interfere in the Balkan country’s election process, a charge dismissed by the embassy as a “wild” conspiracy theory. Milorad Dodik said the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was implementing its aid program through non-government organizations to conceal what he said was its real agenda of countering Russian influence in the region. “Aiming to directly interfere in internal affairs of the Republika Srpska and Bosnia, USAID ... tries to avoid all institutions and to grant funds under cover of the...

The number of people of “non-Western” heritage working in Denmark’s social healthcare sector has increased markedly, according to official figures. The number of full-time employees in the sector with backgrounds defined as being from non-Western countries increased by nine percent between 2016 and 2017, according to an analysis published by Local Government Denmark, a representative body for municipalities. The analysis was based on figures from Statistics Denmark, which show that more people from non-Western backgrounds (1,050 people) than ethnic Danes (925) found work in the sector during the period. Municipalities are finding it difficult to fill positions in the sector...

Denmark has approved a plan to erect a fence on its border with Germany to keep out swine fever but critics argue that is a symbolic gesture epitomizing anti-immigrant sentiments. Denmark’s government gave greenlight to the building of the 68-kilometer (42-mile) fence on the border with fellow EU member state Germany. The project is worth EUR 11 million, and is supposed to protect the large Danish pork industry from wild boar that might carry African swine fever, DW reports. The Danish-German border fence will be 1.5 meters tall and half-meter deep, and will run from one coast of the Jutland...

"...When I was about seven, I had been fawning over a boxed set of Barbie dolls. It was called The Heart Family and included a mom doll, a dad doll, and two children. This perfect nuclear family was only sold in sets of white dolls or black dolls. I don't remember coveting one over the other, I just wanted one. On Christmas morning, swathed in glitter-flecked wrapping paper, there I found my Heart Family: a black mom doll, a white dad doll, and a child in each colour. My dad had taken the sets apart and customised my family." "...Fast-forward...

The British government has reportedly halted cooperating with the U.S. over two British members of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) due to concerns they could face the death penalty. Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, who are accused of involvement in the killing of more than two dozen hostages, are two members of a cell of ISIS fighters known as "The Beatles" because of their British accents. The U.K. government faced backlash earlier this month after agreeing to cooperate with the U.S. and share intelligence about the cases without seeking assurance that they would not face the...

Bannon is moving to Europe to set up The Movement, a populist foundation to rival George Soros and spark a right-wing revolt across the continent. LONDON—Steve Bannon plans to go toe-to-toe with George Soros and spark a right-wing revolution in Europe. Trump’s former White House chief advisor told The Daily Beast that he is setting up a foundation in Europe called The Movement which he hopes will lead a right-wing populist revolt across the continent starting with the European Parliament elections next spring. The non-profit will be a central source of polling, advice on messaging, data targeting, and think-tank research...

Former President Bill Clinton was interrupted by protesters demanding the decriminalization of sex workers worldwide on Friday, while he was giving the closing speech at the International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam. Clinton had just begun addressing the crowd when the protestors began chatting and blowing whistles. “President Clinton, we demand for decriminalization of sex work worldwide and in the United States,” one protester shouted at Clinton. Another protestor shouted at Clinton, “we know you support sex workers, please help us!” Clinton remained silent on stage while the protestors shouted their demands at him. Once they concluded, he commended the conference...

Danish prosecutors on Tuesday charged an imam with calling for the killing of Jews in the first case of its kind in the Nordic nation and which sparked political outrage. Imam Mundhir Abdallah, who preaches in the Copenhagen neighbourhood of Norrebro at the Masjid Al-Faruq mosque, which media have linked to radical Islam, is accused of citing a hadith or koranic narrative calling for Muslims to rise up against Jews. “Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,” Abdallah said in a Facebook and YouTube video post in March.

A row over how to deal with child marriage among immigrants has inflamed political debate ahead of a general election in Sweden, where migration continues to divide public opinion and the far right is riding high in the polls. A tug-of-war between the ruling Social Democrat-Green Party coalition and the opposition over the government’s role in managing or eradicating the practice — which predominantly affects young girls, and in some cases boys, from immigrant backgrounds — is emblematic of a broader struggle to find a balance between efforts to integrate a large number of new immigrants and preserve a Swedish...

Europol signed a strategic agreement with the Israel Police on Tuesday, marking the first-ever working agreement signed between the European Union criminal intelligence agency and a non-EU country. The agreement was signed in The Hague by Israel Police Commissioner Roni Alsheich and Catherine De Bolle, Executive Director of Europol. The signing of the “Police to Police” agreement followed intensive discussions and a vote at the Europol headquarters which was unanimously approved by 28 representatives of member countries. Europol said in a press release that the agreement will be important for tackling priority crime areas affecting both the European Union and...

Plans for US far-right figure Steve Bannon to exert his influence on the European parliament’s 2019 election have been met with alarm across Germany’s political spectrum. Bannon has become a controversial figure, known for his ties to the campaigns for the UK to leave the European Union and the election of US President Donald Trump. “We have to fight now, with good arguments, confident and true,” said Michael Roth, a center-left Social Democrat (SPD) lawmaker and Minister of State for Europe in an interview with the Welt newspaper. Europe should not “be afraid of nationalist campaigns with which Mr. Bannon...

France and Russia have agreed to send 50 metric tons of medical aid to government-controlled eastern Ghouta in Syria, French officials said on Friday. A Russian cargo plane arrived late Friday in Chateauroux in central France to take the aid, which includes medical supplies and other essential goods, to a Russian military base in northwestern Syria. It will then be transported to eastern Ghouta, which the Syrian government retook from rebel forces in April. Once in Syria, the cargo will be distributed by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) with the help of the Syrian...

Yorai Feinberg has gotten used to hearing from “Ludwig Fischer.” Every few days the Berlin restaurant owner receives emails from a man who writes under the pseudonym of one of Hitler’s most notorious SA henchmen. He calls Feinberg a “filthy rat,” says the Holocaust is just a “scam” and rants that all Jews will land in the gas chamber. […] The last few months have seen several high-profile attacks on Jews in Germany. Just last week a Jewish-American professor was attacked by a young German of Palestinian descent in the city of Bonn. In April, an attack on a yarmulke-wearing...

The U.S. ambassador to Germany urged Berlin on Tuesday to stop Iran withdrawing large sums of cash from bank accounts in Germany to offset the effect of new U.S. sanctions imposed after Washington withdrew from a 2015 nuclear deal. Richard Grenell, a longtime critic of the accord, told the mass-circulation daily Bild that the U.S. government was extremely concerned about Tehran’s plans to transfer hundreds of millions of euros in cash to Iran. “We encourage the highest levels of the German government to intervene and stop the plan,” Grenell said. […] Bild first reported on Monday that German authorities were...

The Foreign Ministry summoned the Irish ambassador to Israel, Alison Kelly, following the passage of a BDS bill by the Irish Senate. Ambassador Kelly will be reprimanded by the ministry. The so-called “Occupied Territories Bill” outlaws the trade of goods from Judea and Samaria and imposes prison sentences and heavy fines on those who do not comply with the law. Jerusalem is awaiting the return of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu from Russia before holding a meeting on taking further steps against the Irish move. Earlier, the Foreign Ministry issued a response to the Irish decision saying that “the Irish Senate...

Italy’s hardline Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Thursday said he wanted to put a complete stop to migrant arrivals in Italy by boat. The aim is that “not one more person arrives by boat” on Italian shores, said Salvini during a news conference with Ahmed Maiteeq, vice president of the Libyan UN-backed Government of National Accord. Salvini said that as “a minister and a father” he did not want any more “women or babies to get into rubber dinghies”. […] “Pregnant women, children and refugees will remain in Italy,” said the minister, who has promised to speed up deportations of...

A suspect in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks has been identified by Belgian police as having been among a group of ISIS extremists who burned a Jordanian pilot alive in a cage. Osama Krayem, a Swede of Syrian origin, has been held in Belgium since 2016 and could face war crimes charges over the murder of Maaz al-Kassasbeh, whose grisly death was filmed and put online in an incident that came to symbolise some of the worst excesses of ISIS. Krayem is suspected of playing a key role in the jihadist cell behind the attacks in Paris, which killed...

BERLIN (AFP) - The three parties in Chancellor Angela Merkel's shaky coalition government on Thursday rallied around a tougher policy on migration and asylum aimed at placating conservative allies. At the end of a month-long dispute, Merkel's three-party coalition agreed to a compromise under which the number of asylum-seekers in the country will be reduced. The parties in power -- Merkel's centre-right CDU, the hardline conservative Bavarian CSU ally and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) -- agreed on a "reorganisation of asylum policy" in Germany, SPD chief Andrea Nahles said after a summit meeting in Berlin, adding that it was...

Promoting her new book entitled Fascism: A Warning on the Andrew Marr Show, the former U.S. Secretary of State said she has been “very troubled” by the Trump administration’s moves to end the ‘catch and release’ of illegals into American communities while they await immigration hearings.

In one night alone “vandals” destroyed 185 glass panes at 70 different bus stops across the city of Gothenburg and the nearby municipality of Mölndal. The attacks occurred the weekend before Midsummer day in Sweden and no arrests have been made, according to police, Swedish broadcaster SVT reports. The vandals have become known as “shelter breakers”, according to the public transport company, who say the incidents are not uncommon. “Unfortunately, shelter breakers are not at all an unknown phenomenon for us, and it’s not uncommon for a big weekend,” press communications officer for the public transport company Västtrafik Alice Roman...