Free Republic

EUROPE - THY NAME IS COWARDICE (Commentary by Mathias Dapfner CEO, Axel Springer, AG) A few days ago Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag, "Europe - your family name is appeasement." It's a phrase you can't get out of your head because it's so terribly true. Appeasement cost millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France, allies at the time, negotiated and hesitated too long before they noticed that Hitler had to be fought, not bound to toothless agreements. Appeasement legitimized and stabilized Communism in the Soviet Union, then East Germany, then all the rest of...

PARIS (Reuters) - Challenging one of the great taboos of French politics, a new book has laid bare the love life of the country's amorous leaders. Sexus Politicus, published on Thursday, reveals decades of philandering, adultery and seduction at the heart of the French state, with politicians of all colours apparently sharing the same passion for extra-marital sex. According to the book, President Jacques Chirac and his predecessors Francois Mitterrand and Valery Giscard D'Estaing have juggled the fate of France, their families and a bevy of lovers with great ease, helped partly by an acquiescent media.

AN Italian politician has used the "work makes you free" slogan that topped the gates at Auschwitz in a brochure to promote local job centres, saying he could not remember the source but was impressed by the quote. News agency Ansa reported the vice-president of the Jewish community in Rome had sharply criticised Tommaso Coletti, president of Italy's southern Chieti province and member of the centre-left “Daisy” party, for using the quote. Countless photographs have focused on the “Arbeit macht Frei” sign at Auschwitz to encapsulate the horror of the Nazi death camps. “Work makes you free. I don't remember...

Schoolgirl 'stabbed for love of AC/DC' (Filed: 30/08/2006) A teenager who was stabbed in the eye during her school lunch break said a "gang mentality" singled out pupils for their music and fashion tastes. The 15-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, narrowly escaped losing her sight in the attack last November. She had been the victim of a string of attacks, threats and had even received prank calls at home because she is what is known as "a metaler", Guildford Crown Court heard today. advertisementBut she said: "I mean, it's this gang mentality that my generation seems to...

Two bombs in two crowded trains. Neither bomb, though, exploded. It would have been one of the most lethal terrorist attacks since Sept. 11, 2001. And it was planned not for Britain, not for Indonesia, not for the U.S., but for Germany, of all places. Suddenly the threat to the people there seems very real. German authorities say two people placed suitcase bombs on regional trains that departed from Cologne's main station on July 31. One suspect, a Lebanese student enrolled in a prep program at Kiel University in northern Germany, has been arrested. Police are searching for the other...

he Catholic church has blasted a decision by the Procurator Fiscal to issue Celtic goalkeeper Artur Boruc with a caution for blessing himself. Polish star Boruc was rapped for making the sign of the cross at Ibrox in an Old Firm match last season. The caution was issued after a six-month police investigation into the incident, which is said to have angered a section of the Rangers support. Boruc is reported to have been completely baffled by the decision to issue him with the warning But the move has angered the church and prominent Scottish Catholics including outspoken composer James...

BERLIN, August 25, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Germany has accepted child-pornography in its mainstream culture, and even celebrates it as Deutsche-Welle, a German media source, reveals today in its culture and lifestyle section. In a column entitled “Germany’s Teen Sex Doctor”, Deutsche-Welle unabashedly reports, “Generations of confused German teenagers have turned to Dr. Sommer for honesty -- and explicit photos.” The column continues, “Sandra, 16, looks up coyly from the pages of Bravo, wearing a black choker and nothing else. Boyfriend Elias, 18, grins from the opposite page, also in his natural state. “‘Tell me, why do you love each other?’...

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The British government is considering a system of passenger profiling that includes checks on travelers' ethnic or religious background, according to media reports. The planned system of tougher airport checks would create a new offense of "traveling whilst Asian," according to one of Britain's most senior Muslim police officers. Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent Ali Dizaei said intelligence could be used to examine travel history, how a ticket is purchased and frequency of travel, but added: "It becomes hugely problematic when it's based on ethnicity, religion and country of origin. I don't think there's a stereotypical image...

A top United Nations official says to quiet the "demons" across the "wider Islamic world" the United States and the international community must respect Hezbollah as a political party, not a terrorist organization.

WASHINGTON — U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown may want to stick to reforming his own office and stop criticizing member states, a State Department spokesman said Wednesday. Malloch Brown was quoted in a British newspaper Wednesday suggesting that he does not think that Hezbollah, the Syrian- and Iranian-backed group currently fighting Israeli Defense Forces, is a terrorist organization. "It's not helpful to couch this war in the language of international terrorism. Hezbollah employs terrorist tactics; it is an organization, however, whose roots historically are completely separate and different from Al Qaeda," he said, according to a transcript of an...

But we Americans seem to have short memories. What else could explain the fact that we, generally speaking, so-often lambaste the French, calling them “cowards” for not allying themselves fully with us in every instance? We constantly throw in their faces the fact that we came to their rescue in World Wars I and II. And we’ve all heard the jokes: “Surplus French military rifles for sale. Never fired. Dropped once.”

We're not stopping now, say defiant Israelis By Isambard Wilkinson in Jerusalem and Francis Harris in Washington (Filed: 24/07/2006) Israel brushed aside mounting calls yesterday for a ceasefire in Lebanon. Its army made clear that it planned to keep up its assault for at least a week and had not ruled out a ground invasion. Buoyed by support from Washington for rooting out Hizbollah rockets from southern Lebanon, the army treated parts of the border area as a free-fire zone. It hit at least two cars with rockets as they sought the relative safety of the city of Tyre. Israeli...

Only about 1,300 Jews live in Norway, but because of the tensions and the current events in the Middle East, they are at risk of being attacked. The Norwegian newspaper Vårt Land reports that a Jew was assaulted by Arabs in the streets of Oslo last Saturday. In response, The Mosaic Community in Oslo has sent out a recommendation to its members to leave the kippah at home, or cover it under a cap. It is also warning its members against speaking Hebrew in public. During the past few days the Community has received several threats and other unpleasant messages....

The Resurrection of European Communism By Sven R. Larson FrontPageMagazine.com | July 14, 2006 In a scene strikingly reminiscent of a bygone era, Communist activists rallied this June in Berlin to pledge allegiance to the establishment of a strong, national Communist party in Germany. Proclaiming their contempt for “neo liberal Capitalism” and the major German political parties, who have “no broader social perspective beyond the present,” these 21st century Communists declared their commitment to a “socialist society.” The rally would hardly be newsworthy were it not for the fact that, nearly two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall,...

STRASBOURG, France (AP) - A doping scandal knocked Tour de France favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso out of the race Friday and threw the world's most glamorous cycling event into chaos. The decision to bar Ullrich, Basso and others implicated in a doping probe in Spain also sent a strong signal that cheating, or even suspicions of cheating, will not be tolerated.

PARIS — Seven-time Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong faced yet another claim Friday that he used performance enhancement drugs. A French newspaper, Le Monde, published a report in Friday's editions claiming that Armstrong admitted to doping three years before the first of his seven Tour wins in 1999. Armstrong's attorney strongly denied the claim, and gave The Associated Press a copy of an affidavit from one of the lead doctors who treated Armstrong's testicular cancer.

President George W Bush told Europeans yesterday it was "absurd" to regard the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, as he concluded an EU-US summit overshadowed by disputes on Guantanamo Bay and trans-Atlantic trade barriers. A visibly annoyed Mr Bush was responding to a journalist's question about opinion polls, asking why most Europeans believe the United States is a greater menace than Iran or North Korea. "It's absurd, is my statement," Mr Bush snapped, taking the microphone ahead of the president of the European Commission in his haste to answer the question. "We'll defend ourselves, but we...

The Ghanaian Football Association has apologised after defender John Pantsil waved an Israeli flag to celebrate the World Cup win over the Czech Republic. Spokesman Randy Abbey said the Ghanaian FA was not taking sides in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. Pantsil plays in Israel for Hapoel Tel Aviv wanted to thank Israeli fans who travelled to support him, Abbey said "He's unaware of international politics. We apologise to anybody who was offended," said Abbey. "We promise that it will never happen again. "He did not act out of malice for the Arab people or in support of...

AMERICA’S bitter dispute with the United Nations escalated last night when John Bolton, the US envoy to the UN, threatened to withhold funding to the organisation unless it apologised for the remarks of a senior British official. Speaking at the Centre for Policy Studies in London, Mr Bolton assailed Mark Malloch Brown, the British Deputy UN Secretary-General, for the disparaging remarks he made about the American public this week. “Mark Malloch Brown has a sentence in his speech where he says the role of the UN is a mystery in Middle America,” he said. “Maybe it is fashionable in some...

Airbus could lose its largest and most prominent A350 customer, Qatar Airways, because of its indecision over the aircraft’s configuration and the likelihood that it will adopt an all-new design. The Qatari flag carrier – currently an all-Airbus operator – last year became the lead A350 customer when it announced at the Paris air show that it intended to order 60 of the twinjets for delivery from 2010 after an evaluation that included the rival Boeing 787. Although the airline later began to firm up the deal by signing a letter of intent for the 60 aircraft, it has held...