Free Republic

The highly-respected Lausanne-based Institute for Management Development (IMD) has just issued its 20th anniversary ‘World Competitiveness Yearbook 2008’ [see: ‘Britain slips down key economic league table’, The Times, May 14/15]. It is not a pleasant read for the UK. In this annual assessment of national competitiveness, the UK has fallen one place from twentieth, to twenty-first, having been overtaken by Israel. But, more significantly, the IMD report downgrades the UK’s position against its global rivals on the crucial factor of economic performance, from seventh out of 55 countries to an alarming sixteenth. And the cause of this decline? Yes, you...

Al-Qaeda could be planning to attack this summer's Euro 2008 football championships in Switzerland and Austria, it was reported today. "The Euro 2008 tournament is a target cited by the Islamist terrorist network," a police spokesman reportedly told Swiss newspaper La Liberte. A flurry of messages have been monitored, by police and security officials in Switzerland, on two Islamist internet forums - sos minbar and As-Sahab - which are favoured by the extremist terrorist group as a means to awaken dormant cells. One message is reported to say: "Let’s transform these two countries, the safest in Europe, into hell -...

China to leapfrog Britain in household wealth Last Updated: 10:47am BST 07/05/2008 Chinese households will have the third greatest spending power in the world within a decade, leapfrogging their British counterparts. Barclays Wealth and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) ranked China's total household sector spending power at number seven in 2007. The UK was ranked third. But in a global forecast released today, Barclays and the EIU will say China's booming economy will propel it to number three by 2017, just ahead of Britain at number four. Although the figures are skewed because China is so populus, it is also...

Almost everywhere I went last week — TV, radio, speeches — I was asked about the 60th anniversary of the Israeli state. I don't recall being asked about Israel quite so much on its 50th anniversary, which, as a general rule, is a much bigger deal than the 60th. But these days friends and enemies alike smell weakness at the heart of the Zionist Entity. Assuming Iranian President Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic fancies don't come to pass, Israel will surely make it to its 70th birthday. But a lot of folks don't fancy its prospects for its 80th and beyond. See the...

Behind closed doors, over diplomatic dinners, in the corridors of departments, embassies, ministries and chanceries, Europe’s rulers are playing a “once in a lifetime” game for the future of the European Union. As I have already noted, here and here, this is a power play to which the public is not even a spectator. Substantial negotiations are underway on the biggest European job carve up package, including Nato, in the EU’s existence. The rules of the game, the players and the running score are known only to a tiny group of EU leaders and their most senior civil servants. The...

dd India and Belgium to the list of countries worried about attacks coming from China. Officials from both countries warned the public over the past week that online attacks -- appearing to come from the People's Republic of China (PRC) -- have targeted their government networks. Unnamed Indian officials told the Times of India that almost daily probes have focused on mapping and scanning India's official networks over the past 18 months. The Justice Minister of Belgium warned that e-mail attacks, aimed at compromising government computers, appear to be coming from China, according to a United Press International report.

Holes, Cheese, and Heads The Swiss, a few years ago, added a provision to their constitution that gives dignity to all living organisms using the term “Würde der Kreatur” (dignity of living beings) to apply to both plants and animals. To explain exactly what this means, the Swiss Federal Ethics Committee on Non-Human Biotechnology produced a report called "The Dignity of Living Beings with Regard to Plants." There is a reason the most famous invention of the Swiss is the cuckoo clock. There are obviously more holes in their heads than in their cheese. The report appears to be one...

Editor’s Note: Today’s story comes to us from the European Fishing Tackle Trade Association. Catch and Release fishing will be banned in Switzerland from next year, it was revealed this week. And anglers in the country will have to demonstrate their expertise by taking a course on humane methods of catching fish, under new legislation outlined by the Bundesrat - the Swiss Federal Parliament. The new legislation states that fish caught should be killed immediately following their capture, with a sharp blow to the head from a blunt instrument. Under the new regulations, the use of livebait and barbed hooks...

Leon Fuerth is a 61-year-old university professor: grey-haired, a bit distracted, not over-formal - the kind of guy who never attracts a second glance when he walks the streets of Washington. However, he is surprisingly new to campus life. He became a visiting professor of international affairs at George Washington University earlier this year after the job he could, would and - arguably - should have had fell through in distressing circumstances. Professor Fuerth, a member of Al Gore's staff for 20 years, had been promised the post of national security advisor, the position close to the president's ear held ...

Silvio Berlusconi's re-election as Italy's Prime Minister is more promising and more important for Italy and the United States, and for trans-Atlantic relations generally, than most commentators have admitted. Although the Bush Administration has just nine months left in office, significant progress is both possible and desirable in enhancing ties between America and Europe. President Bush's critics have been quick to assign him blame for weakened trans-Atlantic relations, particularly because of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. They argue that public opinion polls show European popular sentiments turning against the United States. They gloat that two of Bush's staunchest personal and...

BRUSSELS , May 5: The President of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, underlined here Monday that Islam is part and parcel of Europe and he also condemned the concept of clash of civilisations. "Islam today is part of Europe. It is important to understand this.One should not see Islam as outside Europe. We already have an important presence of Islam and Muslims among our citizens," Barroso told a press conference this afternoon after an informal dialogue between EU leaders and around twenty high-level representatives of Christianity, Judaism and Islam in Europe. "We can be a European citizen being a...

England to be most crowded in Europe By Christopher Hope, Home Affairs Editor Last Updated: 1:42AM BST 06/05/2008 The population of England will increase by a third over the next 50 years as it becomes the most crowded major nation in Europe, official forecasts suggest. The population density in England is almost double the level in Germany England's population is now 50 million, but by 2056 it will be 68 million – or 1,349 for every square mile. At present there are 1,010 per square mile. In London, the population density will jump from 12,377 people per square mile to...

Wageningen - The annual Liberty Parade marking Liberation Day in 1945 has been held in the Dutch town of Wageningen. Around 1,300 veterans, including 200 from World War II, filed through the city centre. Some 100,000 spectators lined the streets despite the high temperatures. At a ceremony early in the afternoon Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende kicked off 13 liberation festivals across the country. The festivities will end with an outdoor concert on the river Amstel in the capital which will be attended by Queen Beatrix.

Last week I was in London attending a Global Leadership Forum, sponsored by the Royal United Services Institute, the Princeton Project on National Security, Newsweek International, and Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP. The attendees–from both the United States and Europe–included academics, scholars, journalists, diplomatic advisers and others who inhabit the foreign policy world. The event was well-organized, the conversations wide-ranging, and there was a genuine effort to hear from a diversity of voices (hence my invitation). But there is no question that the dominant outlook of most of those in attendance was left-leaning, which itself made the trip illuminating. I came...

WARSAW (AFP) — As life expectancy grows and birth rates slump across the EU, around one third of the bloc's population could be over the age of 65 by 2050, a social shift with the potential to transform the lives of Europeans. Only three years ago, just 16.5 percent of the inhabitants of the European Union's current 27 member states were over 65. The proportion is expected to grow to 18 percent by 2010, 25 percent by 2030 and 30 percent by 2050, according to recent forecasts from the EU's Eurostat data agency. The number of European residents over 65...

Palestinians residing in Europe gather for mass event in Denmark; Islamic Movement leader Sheikh Salah tells participants their homes in Israel await them Sharon Roffe-Ofir Published: 05.04.08, 16:08 / Israel News Thousands of Palestinians residing in Europe attended a rally in the Danish capital of Copenhagen Saturday marking 60 years since a large part of the Palestinian population was expelled from, or left the newly-founded Israel during the war between Israel and the Arabs in 1948. The event, which was held in Europe for the sixth consecutive year, was organized by the Palestinian Committee in Europe and al-Awda, The Palestine...

In less than a week the major political parties of the Right in Britain and Italy scored unprecedented electoral victories by winning mayoral races in Rome and then in London. Since the end of the Second World War, the Right had never controlled those two offices. To grasp what this means, consider that "Londonistan" is the title of an excellent book by Melanie Phillips which warns of the descent of that great city into a radical Moslem polity. The citizens of Londonistan have chosen an iconoclastic Conservative Party leader, Boris Johnson, who has campaigned on the need to reduce crime...

In the past four months, six Muslim women living in Berlin have been brutally murdered by family members. Their crime? Trying to break free and live Western lifestyles. Within their communities, the killers are revered as heroes for preserving their family dignity. How can such a horrific and shockingly archaic practice be flourishing in the heart of Europe? The deaths have sparked momentary outrage, but will they change the grim reality for Muslim women? The shots came from nowhere and within minutes the young Turkish mother standing at the Berlin bus stop was dead. A telephone call from a relative...

Boris Johnson has won the race to become the next mayor of London - ending Ken Livingstone's eight-year reign at City Hall. The Conservative candidate won with 1,168,738 first and second preference votes, compared with Mr Livingstone's 1,028,966 on a record turnout of 45%.

LONDON -- Britain's Labour Party suffered its worst local election defeat on record and lost control of London on Friday, forcing Prime Minister Gordon Brown to rethink his strategy to avoid losing the next national poll. Conservative Boris Johnson, a journalist-turned-lawmaker prone to gaffes, wrested the prized post of London mayor from Labour's maverick Ken Livingstone, who has run the sprawling metropolis of some 7.5 million people since 2000. The election results were a major blow to Brown, who enjoyed a brief honeymoon with voters after he took over from Tony Blair, but has since been beset by economic turmoil,...

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has asked Congress for $20 million for military aid to Poland as it seeks to complete a missile defense deal. The administration wants to build a European missile shield that would include a radar installation in the Czech Republic and 10 interceptors in Poland. Officials have been trying to reach a deal with the two countries before President Bush leaves office in January. The U.S. is nearing a deal with Prague, but negotiations with Warsaw have lagged. The talks had been complicated by Poland's demand for help to upgrade its military in exchange for allowing...

I'd like to say so myself. It's time we realize we're actually in a war together and that all of us who do NOT participate at the front line have a special kind of obligation towards the brave men and women who ARE. I'm 38 years old and one thing I've learned from being alive this long is that a group of people who stand united, devoted to something of eternal value are, virtually, indestructable as such. Apart from being somewhat "old", I'm of Swedish stock (- like food a lot, but I'm not a Swedish chef in fact:D -)...

Boris Johnson is the new Mayor of London, his rivals conceded tonight. The Tory MP scored a stunning election victory to end Ken Livingstone's eight-year reign and round off a disastrous 24 hours for the Labour Party. After a nailbiting count, Mr Johnson was so far ahead on first-preference votes he could not be caught by Mr Livingstone, even after second preferences were taken into account. Labour officials conceded privately that the Conservative was too far ahead. At 5pm, Mr Livingstone's campaign chief Tessa Jowell said: "The reports I'm getting suggest Boris Johnson is ahead. "If Ken has not won,...

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

From January 2009, the European Union will have its own president to chair EU summits and unite the views of 27 member states. Click on the country names to find out more about those being tipped for the top job, described by former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing as Europe's "own George Washington".

Election latest: David Cameron inflicts worst drubbing in 40 years The Conservatives made sweeping gains across the country early today as voters gave Gordon Brown a huge rebuff in his first electoral test as Prime Minister. David Cameron chalked up important successes in the North, the Midlands and the South, securing his top target of Bury in Greater Manchester and taking control of Nuneaton and Bedworth, and Southampton. The Conservatives also took seats in Labour strongholds of Sunderland and Wigan. Labour suffered one of its worst electoral humiliations, with its national share of the vote dropping to 24 or 25...

Polling stations are now closing... Based on a wide range of conversations we've had throughout the day with people in the field and with senior Tory and other insiders we are very confident that on the basis of patterns of turnout, postal votes and canvass returns Boris Johnson has been elected Mayor of London.

A senior Bush administration official said Friday that the U.S. now accepts the "reality" of the International Criminal Court, and that Washington would consider aiding the Hague tribunal in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region. "The U.S. must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support, and that many countries will look to the ICC as the preferred mechanism" for punishing war crimes that individual countries can't or won't address, John Bellinger, the State Department's chief lawyer, told a conference in Chicago marking t he 10th anniversary of the tribunal's founding treaty, the Rome Statute....

SWITZERLAND, April 28, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The nation that liberalized its abortion laws in 2002 is now giving unprecedented protection to animal and plant life.In an effort to respect the needs of "social species," the Swiss parliament passed legislation last week that threatens its citizens with punishment for not providing various animals a fit environment in which they can interact and flourish.Enjoying the most extensive protection under the new laws, dogs proved to be the Swiss parliament's best friend.  Prospective dog owners will now be required to complete a course in canine treatment that will include both theoretical and...

An ambitious new book explains how and why the U.S. is so different from other countries around the world. “America is indeed exceptional by any plausible definition of the term and actually has grown increasingly exceptional [over] time.” This is the conclusion of the editors of a new volume, Understanding America: The Anatomy of an Exceptional Nation (PublicAffairs, $35). At an American Enterprise Institute conference on April 22, Peter H. Schuck and James Q. Wilson introduced the collection of essays, which is designed to probe Alexis de Tocqueville’s observation that America is “exceptional,” or qualitatively different from other countries. The...

French Prisons: Up to 70% of Inmates Are Muslims April 29, 2008 Muslims make up only about 12 percent of France’s population — but account for from 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country’s prisons. French prison officials blame that remarkable statistic on the poverty of people who have moved to France from North Africa and other Muslim nations in recent decades. French Muslim leaders further hold racism and discrimination as the root cause of unemployment and crime rates among the Muslim minority, according to the Islam Online Web site. In Britain, Muslims reportedly make up 3...

A battalion of 600 British troops will be sent to Kosovo, Defence Secretary Des Browne has announced. It follows a Nato request for extra soldiers to maintain public order in the newly independent country. Britain is responsible for providing the body's standby reserve force for the first six months of this year. The soldiers, from 2nd Battalion, The Rifles, will be deployed to Kosovo from the end of May for one month to help Nato with peacekeeping activities. There are currently 150 British troops working in Kosovo. This latest deployment comes in response to a Nato request to deal with...

Rome - Centre right candidate Gianni Alemanno has won the mayoral election in Rome with almost 54 percent of the votes cast. This puts him ahead of his left wing rival Francesco Rutelli and brings to an end the 15-year rule of the city's left wing administration. Mr Alemanno is a political ally of Silvio Berlusconi, who two weeks ago was the big winner in Italy's parliamentary elections.

Even military leaders aren’t immune. In 2005, columnist Diana West noted that America’s Iraq commander, Lieutenant General John R. Vines, was educating his staff in Islam by giving them a reading list that “whitewashes jihad, dhimmitude and sharia law with the works of Karen Armstrong and John Esposito”; two years later, West noted the unwillingness of a counterinsurgency advisor, Lieutenant Colonel David Kilcullen, to mention jihad. In January 2008, the Pentagon fired Stephen Coughlin, its resident expert on sharia and jihad; reportedly, his acknowledgment that terrorism was motivated by jihad had antagonized an influential Muslim aide. “That Coughlin’s analyses would...

The British-born rich are being left behind in the wealth stakes by an international “superclass” based in London... Only six of the top twenty places in the list, published yesterday, go to people who were born in Britain. Britain’s two wealthiest men are once again the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal and Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club. Mr Mittal, 57, who retains his Indian passport but spends much of his time in London, tops the list for the fourth consecutive year... Mr Mittal is joined in the top 20 by foreign-born newcomers such as Alisher Usmanov, a...

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - UBS AG. plans to cut about 8,000 jobs and will likely announce the move when it presents its first-quarter financial results on May 6, Swiss weekly newspaper Sonntag reported, without saying where it got the information. Some 3,000 cuts will initially affect the company's operations in the United States and in western Europe, with the remaining 5,000 jobs to be eliminated this autumn, primarily in administrative functions, the newspaper said.

PRAGUE (AFP) - Czechs are in pole position to overturn decades of post-war economic decline and stagnation to become the first citizens of a former Communist bloc country to attain Western levels of prosperity. Catch-up with the West can be achieved within a decade, according to the latest upbeat report on the Central European country published by the 30-strong OECD this week. "The gap could close within a decade," the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted. That step, coming after the Czech Republic overtook Portugal's economic performance in 2004, the same year it entered the European Union, would be...

Emergency fuel tankers set sail from Europe By Andrew Alderson, Jasper Copping and Richard Gray Last Updated: 1:54am BST 27/04/2008 Emergency supplies of fuel will be shipped in from Europe this week to prevent pumps in Scotland and England from running dry. A convoy of seven tankers carrying 65,000 tons of fuel, mostly diesel, will arrive in the next few days, following today's oil refinery strike. Dry run: A near-deserted Shell station in Edinburgh The shipments from Rotterdam, Amsterdam and Gothenburg will be unloaded on the river Forth, Scotland's busiest shipping lane. They will provide enough fuel to keep Scotland...

Italy must be broken up, says Berlusconi's wife By Malcolm Moore in Rome Last Updated: 1:37am BST 26/04/2008 Silvio Berlusconi's wife added her voice yesterday to the growing calls for Italy to be partitioned. In an interview with La Stampa, Veronica Lario, 51, said: "Italy has never been well-suited to being a single country, and has never matured enough to become one. There is no longer any value in a unified Italy." Silvio Berlusconi with his wife. Cabinet posts may go to the Northern League, which wants independence from Italy’s South Ms Lario, a former showgirl, married Italy's prime minister-elect...

UK is Europe's top terror centre, arrests show Last Updated: 10:55pm BST 26/04/2008 Britain has become the main focus of Islamist terror in Europe, according to official figures. More Muslim extremists were detained in Britain last year on terror-related charges than in the rest of Europe added together. The number of arrests rose steeply and involved "young, radicalised British citizens", sparking fears that the threat of an attack is growing. The report by Europol, the European police force, said that terrorist plots linked to groups in Pakistan had been "almost exclusively focused on the UK". It comes following the disclosure...

The euro has suffered its sharpest drop in four years as a blizzard of weak data from Germany, Belgium, France, and Spain spark fears that economic contagion may be spreading from the Anglo-Saxon world to Europe. Spain's business federation warned that Spanish unemployment will rise by 500,000 by the summer unless the government takes "valiant measures" to offset the housing and construction crash. "For every dwelling not built, two workers will lose their jobs," said the group's president, Gerardo Diaz Ferran. The country's credit group ASNEF said the volume of personal loans had dropped 30pc in the first quarter, the...

The euro has suffered its sharpest drop in four years as a blizzard of weak data from Germany, Belgium, France, and Spain spark fears that economic contagion may be spreading from the Anglo-Saxon world to Europe. A cafe waiter carries his tray with euro notes and coins: Euro dives as wheels fly off eurozone economy The IMF has cut its eurozone growth forecast three times since October. Spain's business federation warned that Spanish unemployment will rise by 500,000 by the summer unless the government takes "valiant measures" to offset the housing and construction crash. "For every dwelling not built, two...

Olivier Guitta in the Middle East Times:A few months ago Bernard Squarcini the head of the DST (Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire), the French equivalent of the FBI, told the French daily Libération regarding Islamic radicalization: "An ideological transformation can be done in three months on the Web. An individual can at night auto-radicalize himself via the Web and get in touch with leaders of terrorist organizations." This assessment shows how dire the situation is in Europe when it comes to al-Qaida's use of the Web. Al-Qaida uses the web for four different tasks: propaganda; communication, mostly to instruct...

Rome mayoral candidate, Gianni Alemanno, will on Thursday visit the Italian Islamic Cultural Centre in the capital, known as the city's Grand Mosque ... "The mosque in Rome is a unique Islamic institution of the Italian republic and it is the first time that a candidate for mayor is coming on a visit,"... "During his visit, Alemanno will meet some Muslim representatives and in particular the secretary general of the Islamic centre, Abdellah Redouane."

Bat Ye'or : "Eurabia is coherent. Its asks Israel to do what Europe does : open borders, renounce to self-defense and, finally, self-destruction". This interview was made on April 21, 2008, in French, but you can translate it in English. Go on the website linked, check on the right and click the "english flag" in the AltaVista Bablefish window. The translation is pretty good - and Bat Ye'or's remarks are MUST READ for every Freeper. Enjoy. And don't forget to five a feedback in the commentaries of the article.

European business officials warn China over consequences of boycott BEIJING - EUROPEAN business officials warned on Wednesday that calls in China for a boycott of French products since the raucous Olympic torch relay in Paris could spark a backlash against Chinese exports. France and high-profile French retailer Carrefour have been singled out by Chinese nationalists who saw the April 7 protests against the torch relay by pro-Tibetan groups and others as an insult to their national pride. Anger climaxed this past weekend with protests at the French Embassy in Beijing and at Carrefour outlets in at least nine Chinese cities....

CIVITAVECCHIA, Italy — At a time when the world’s top climate experts agree that carbon emissions must be rapidly reduced to hold down global warming, Italy’s major electricity producer, Enel, is converting its massive power plant here from oil to coal, generally the dirtiest fuel on earth. Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent. And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy...

...Secular gun-free big-government Europe doesn't seem to have done anything for people's happiness. Consider by way of example the words of Keith Reade. He's not an Obama speechwriter, he's a writer for the London Daily Mirror. And the day after the 2004 Presidential election he expressed his frustration in an alarmingly Obamaesque way: "Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets. The self-righteous, gun-totin', military-lovin', sister-marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who...

HELSINKI, Finland -- Mounting inflation pressures have lessened the likelihood of a European Central Bank interest-rate cut this year and could push policy makers to debate a rate increase, despite slowing growth and the euro's surge to its highest level since its debut in 1999. "Inflation risks are real," Finnish central banker Erkki Liikanen said in an interview. He acknowledged risks to euro-zone growth and indicated that slower growth should eventually bring down inflation. But he stressed, "Our prime mandate is price stability. And history shows that if you fail there, it's a long negative impact on growth and it's...