Free Republic

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) publishes a weekly webzine, The Islamic State Report. The latest issue is headlined “Smashing the Borders of the Tawaghit.” (“Tawaghit” are non-Muslim creations.) ISIS, citing the Sykes-Picot Treaty of 1916 between the British and French, boasts that it is destroying the “partitioning of Muslim lands by crusader powers.” That may seem like a quixotic task for a relatively small band of irregulars, but in trying to redraw the map of Iraq and Syria, ISIS has hit upon a weak link in the chain holding the nations of the Middle East together. It...

Dealing a defiant blow to the Kremlin, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine signed a long-delayed trade pact with Europe on Friday that Moscow had bitterly opposed. He then declared he would like his country to one day become a full member of the European Union. In so doing, Ukraine’s new leader, a billionaire confectionary magnate, has in effect raised a risky bet on the West that has cost his country hundreds of lives and the loss of the Crimean peninsula to Russia and has set off a low-level civil war in its eastern border region. By signing the trade...

Archaeologists have formed a trade union grouping amid concerns that some highly qualified people are working for pay rates not much above the minimum wage — or in some cases, for free. Contract archaeologists, who mostly work in the private sector, have joined trade union Unite in an attempt to convince archaeological consultancies to sign up to a standardised pay agreement that would protect wage levels. The move comes after what the chairman of the new branch, Matt Seaver, described as “an apocalypse” in the sector. The union grouping comprises approximately 60 contract archaeologists — around half the total number...

BERLIN -- After being injured fighting the Syrian government, 31-year-old Mohannad reached his home in Frankfurt, Germany, with a simple plan: rest, recuperate, then rejoin the fight with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. As related in German newspaper accounts, which by law couldn’t identify him by his full name, Mohannad even transferred the equivalent of $6,800 to a Syrian bank for use by the terror organization. With that as evidence that he was supporting a terrorist organization, German authorities seized his passport and prevented him from returning to Turkey _ the jumping-off point for radicals seeking to join...

Germany’s domestic intelligence service wants to increase surveillance on users of social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, but stressed it would only target terrorists and extremists. […] But the Süddeutsche Zeitung had reported that the BfV’s chief, Hans-Georg Maaßen, wanted to develop a system which collected “large amounts of online data”. …

The German government is ending a contract with Verizon over fears the company could be letting U.S. intelligence agencies eavesdrop on sensitive communications, officials said Thursday. The New York-based company has for years provided Internet services to a number of government departments, although not to German security agencies, said Interior Ministry spokesman Tobias Plate. […] German authorities were particularly irked by reports that the NSA had targeted Chancellor Angela Merkel. Berlin has also proposed building more secure networks in Europe to avoid having to rely on American Internet companies that manage much of the electronic traffic circulating the globe. …

Eurofighter will by year-end make is final proof-of-concept test flight on an aerodynamic modification kit that promises to improve the combat aircraft’s subsonic turn rate by 15%. Adding leading edge root extensions and extended trailing edge flaps, and reshaping the side-of-cockpit ILS antennae covers as 70° delta strakes should improve the aircraft’s agility for close-quarters combat. Laurie Hilditch, head of future capabilities at Eurofighter, says the modification kit should give the aircraft the sort of “knife-fight in a phone box” turning capability enjoyed by rivals such as Boeing’s F/A-18E/F or the Lockheed Martin F-16, without sacrificing the transonic and supersonic...

This is a fascinating development and one that I had no idea was happening until today. It seems that rallies are spreading throughout Germany protesting the corrupt and dying global status quo. One of the key targets of these groups is the U.S. Federal Reserve system, which as I and many others have maintained, is the core cancer infecting the entire planet. According to the organizer of these rallies, they have now spread to up to 100 cities and have a combined attendee base of around 20,000. What is also interesting, is that the mainstream media in Germany is calling...

UK prime minister David Cameron is to force EU leaders to vote on whether to appoint Jean-Claude Juncker to become the next president of the European Commission at a summit later this week. […] A vote would be unprecedented. Traditionally, EU leaders decide on the leader of the EU executive by consensus following a formal discussion. Cameron has argued that Juncker, a former prime minister of the Grand Duchy and veteran of more than twenty years of EU summitry, is too federalist and will be unable to reform the EU, in the wake of election results which saw a surge...

A spokesperson for police in the district of Hochsauerlandkreis in the German Federal State of Nordrhein Westfalen, reported the accident. The German armed forces and a spokesperson for the German Air Force confirmed for the magazine Spiegel Online.de and the daily Bild, that the military plane was a German Air Force Eurofighter.

This week German news magazine Der Spiegel published the largest single set of files leaked by whistleblower and former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. The roughly 50 documents show the depth of the German intelligence agencies' collusion with the NSA. They suggest that the German Intelligence Agency (BND), the country's foreign spy agency, and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the German domestic spy agency, worked more closely with the NSA than they have admitted - and more than many observers thought.

A new study concludes that humans mated with Neanderthals 50,000 to 80,000 years ago, leaving traces of the Neanderthal genome in some modern humans. This picture shows the reconstruction of a Neanderthal woman at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, Germany, on March 20, 2009. A new study is offering insights into how early humans and Neanderthals were similar and different.

School health services in the small Swedish city of Norrköping have found 60 cases of female genital mutilation (FGM) among schoolgirls since March, with evidence of mutilation found in all 30 girls in one class, 28 of the most severe form. In Sweden, where the EU’s Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) says that FGM “is considered to be a serious problem,” the law enables genital examination of children to be carried out without parents’ consent. ... FGM became widespread in Sweden in the early and mid-1990s with the influx of Somali migrants

Within the space of a few weeks the Abbott government has presided over a shake-up of the options for a fleet of submarines to replace the ageing ­Collins class. While an evolved Collins class was a short-price favourite at the end of the Labor era, an almighty spat between the Swedish government and German industrial giant Thyssen Krupp Marine Systems means a German design could now fall over the line. The nuclear option remains off the table despite the US indicating it would be amenable to an Australian approach on the Virginia class submarines. Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s enthusiasm for...

Greece has launched a multi-billion euro claim against one of Germany’s biggest defence firms who sold the financially-beleaguered country four submarines in a complicated deal which has become symbolic of the country’s economic woes. The controversial deal has threatened Greece’s position in Nato, according to well-placed sources, led to the criminal prosecution of the country’s defence minister and the resignation of a senior Naval figure. The Telegraph today publishes photographs of the four submarines, which are still unfinished in a Greek shipyard almost 15 years after they were first ordered. It can now be disclosed that the Greek Government has...

Germany’s defense minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday the country could play a bigger military role in UN peacekeeping operations. […] “We have key capacities and capabilities which other nations do not have,” she said after meeting deputy Secretary-General of the UN Jan Eliasson. …

President Obama just can't seem to help himself. Over and over again, he makes exaggerated or false claims about guns and crime. Last year Obama kept asserting the bogus numbers such as “40 percent of all gun purchases take place without a background check.” Besides the study being based on a tiny survey it was started before the Federal background check law went into effect. Moreover, the 40 percent figure referred to all transfers, not just sales, and the vast majority of transfers took place within families through gifts and inheritances. Then, for good measure, Obama added an extra 4...

German Chancellor Angela Merkel assured Brazil on Sunday that she will do her utmost to bring to a successful end the 15-year-old negotiation of a free trade deal between the European Union and South America’s Mercosur trade bloc. Merkel, stopping in the Brazilian capital on her way to see the German soccer team play in the World Cup on Monday, said Germany and Brazil, the two largest economies in Europe and Latin America, had much to gain from more trade and investment. […] Brazil, a regional powerhouse that is seeking more trade to boost its stagnant economy, feels it is...

Germany’s president says his compatriots shouldn’t always reject deploying the military to help resolve conflicts as he underlines calls for the country to take more international responsibility. […] President Joachim Gauck told Deutschlandfunk radio in an interview broadcast Saturday that he understands Germans’ longstanding reluctance to take a leading international role, but the country is now a “solid and reliable democracy.” He said that in defending human rights and innocent lives “it is sometimes necessary to take up arms.” …

Bergdahl's ability to make decisions and anticipate the future was stripped during his captivity.After five years in Taliban captivity, US Sgt Bowe Bergdahl is on his way to Texas for the next stage of his "reintegration" to freedom. What does the programme consist of and what does a returning prisoner of war need in the long term? The first stage of the military's reintegration mission is straight-forward - ensure the ex-captive is safe and out of immediate danger. The Pentagon says this takes 48-96 hours and often deals with emergency medical issues and time-sensitive intelligence debriefing. The second and third...