Free Republic

SEOUL - South Korean security authorities were ready to carry out on-board inspections of a Bahama-registered freighter after being tipped off that the ship might carry some members of Al-Qaeda, police said on Thursday. The 17,000-tonne freighter, the Athenia, which was suspected of carrying members of Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda group, was due to arrive at the southwestern port of Kunsan late Thursday, the police said. “We have been informed that Al Qaeda members might be hiding in the ship,” a police officer in charge of foreign affairs in Kunsan Police station told AFP. “When the ship reaches the...

Before I taint your first thoughts, check out this FaceBook page made for ElPida refugee charity in Greece and then go down to read my comments about this charity.. https://www.facebook.com/elpidafactory/

European border officials are being pulled out of Greek islands over concerns for their safety, following a spate of riots and violence by migrants. Since March, migrants arriving on the Greek islands have been prevented from moving on to the mainland as the European Union (EU) hopes to return at least some of them to Turkey. But due to growing frustrated at the delay, the migrants have taken to burning down their accommodation and rioting, the Daily Mail has reported. As a result, Belgium has taken the decision to withdraw its staff from the islands, fearing for their safety. Belgium’s...

ATHENS, Greece – Greek riot police used tear gas and stun grenades Tuesday in Athens to disperse about 3,000 left-wing marchers protesting a visit by President Barack Obama after they tried to enter an area off-limits to demonstrators.

In his second term, the outgoing US president has grown fond of fundamental considerations. Now, at press conferences, his responses are long and philosophical. His speech in Athens, perhaps the last he will make as US president on European soil, fit the pattern perfectly. All in all, it was about democracy and his steadfast belief in the democratic political order. The problem is that its present form is doomed to failure, as some of its most important traits, achievements and outgrowths are now attacking their own foundations. Almost like a schoolteacher, Barack Obama explained to his audience why free press...

Mr Obama's visit to Athens, Greece, was supposed to be a grand farewell, but descended into chaos when angry rioters took to the street to demand he leave. Youths riding motorbikes, carrying wooden clubs and launching petrol bombs tried to break a police cordon and confront Mr Obama directly. Hooded left wing protestors took to the streets shouting "Yankees go home" and "we don't need protectors" – a reference to Mr Obama's announcement that he thought Greece should be allowed off the hook when it comes to its spiralling national debt.

LONDON — Outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama was in Greece Tuesday, bringing to Europe much sought assurances about the U.S. commitment to NATO under the presidency of Donald Trump. Before leaving the United States, Obama said President-elect Trump told him he intends to maintain America's core strategic relationships. Athens is the first stop on Obama’s last foreign trip as president.

President Obama will depart Monday on his final foreign trip of his presidency — and the main topic of the three-country tour is expected to be President-elect Donald Trump. “We certainly expect that the election will be the primary topic on people’s minds everywhere we go,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters, the Wall Street Journal reported. The president will travel to Athens on Monday, then to Berlin on Wednesday and finally Lima, Peru, on Friday. He’s expected to return to Washington, DC, on Sunday. In addition to meeting Greek and German leaders, Obama will meet with President...

In Greece, there is none of the cognitive dissonance about President Obama that one sees in the U.S.: although an overwhelming majority of Americans believe the country is going in the wrong direction, Obama remains personally quite popular. It's as if we can't look beyond Obama's winning, grinning persona and cannot see that Obama is the one responsible for the country's wrong direction. In Greece, unfortunately, there has been a strong anti-American view of the U.S. ever since Andreas Papandreou demagogued the American bases out of Greece during the 1980s. The mainland bases were duly shut down, Souda Bay on...

An armed anarchist group in Greece is calling for "attacks and clashes" during next week's visit by U.S. President Barack Obama. The Conspiracy Cells of Fire group is urging anarchists to "spoil the party ... and sabotage" the Nov. 15-16 visit to Athens. The nihilist group has organized a string of bomb attacks on judges, police and other authority figures. The attacks have caused minor injuries, but no fatalities. Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/news/nation-world/world/article114136308.html#storylink=cpy

Trident gun fishing is only for the bold; we follow one young hunter on the path to catch the smartest prey in the seaMy friend Danai keeps all her fishing supplies in one corner of her beach house. There are things like flippers, snorkels, and masks; a buoy that you wear around your waist to alert incoming boats that you’re in the water; and...a trident gun? “What do you do with that?” I asked her. It was probably a stupid question, but was the gun even real? Was this some kind of staple for every Greek beach house, like the...

Hillary sent classified email to Chelsea about the Greece debt crisis. Chelsea's husband runs a hedge fund trading Greek bonds. Insider trading!

Asylum seekers, angry at the slow progress of their paperwork, attacked and burnt down offices at a camp in Lesbos, Greece. The attack happened while interviews with fellow migrants were taking place inside, officials say. The European Asylum Support Office’s (EASO) mobile registry at the Moria camp was besieged on Monday morning by mob of around 70 refugees hurling stones and petrol bombs. At least eight containers were seriously damaged, with at least three of those burnt down to the ground. Spokesman Jean-Pierre Schembri said the attackers threw petrol bombs at the EASO facilities while staff members were conducting interviews...

Asylum-seekers attacked the premises of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) on the island of Lesbos on Monday (24 October), protesting against delays in dealing with asylum claims, Greek and EU authorities said. About 70 people, mostly from Pakistan and Bangladesh, threw rocks and burning blankets at EASO containers inside the Moria migrant camp, damaging three of those, a Greek police spokesman for the island said. EASO spokesman Jean-Pierre Schembri said protesters had hurled petrol bombs while interviews with asylum-seekers were taking place. EASO staff had evacuated the camp. …

Observers are warning about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly neo-Ottoman stance and disregard for secular prerogatives.” Indeed, and this new appointment essentially completes the motion of making the Hagia Sophia into a functioning mosque again. European Union officials ought to see this for what it is: a decisive rejection of any pretense of dealing with the Christian or post-Christian West on a mutually respectful basis. Erdogan is an Islamic supremacist and is pursuing an openly supremacist imperative. European officials who are still pushing for Turkey’s entry into the EU, as well as the ongoing phenomenon of massive Muslim immigration...

Hedge fund manager Marc Mezvinsky had friends in high places when he bet big on a Greek economic recovery, but even the keen interest of his mother-in-law, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, wasn't enough to spare him and his investors from financial tragedy. In 2012, Mezvinski, the husband of Chelsea Clinton, created a $325 million basket of offshore funds under the Eaglevale Partners banner through a special arrangement with investment bank Goldman Sachs. The funds have lost tens of millions of dollars predicting that bailouts of the Greek banking system would pump up the value of the country’s distressed bonds....

Previously posted here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3429675/posts But it is the last paragraph of the article that is of relevance, vis-a-vis Mr. Trump's tax return; here is what it says: "The one silver lining for the fund’s investors from all of this is that they will have a somewhat larger tax loss on investments to claim next year."

Germany’s highest official responsible for refugees has again called for the return of asylum seekers to Greece as the first EU country they normally reach, saying the European Union’s Dublin Regulation should be implemented regardless of objections by Athens. “I would like the Dublin convention to be applied again... we will take up discussions on this in a meeting with (EU) interior ministers,” German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said in an interview published in the Greek media on Sunday, saying talks on the issue will take place later this month.

The State Department has admitted it lost a 2012 email between Hillary Clinton aide Jake Sullivan and a Clinton Foundation employee, which may demonstrate a financial conflict of interest for the former secretary of state. The Washington Examiner describes the message as follows: The email contained an attachment memo about Greek bonds — a significant detail given the heavy investments Clinton’s son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, was making in the Greek economic recovery during that same period.

Four Pakistani teenagers have been arrested on suspicion of gang-rape They are accused of attacking a fellow Pakistani teenager at Lesbos campThe group also face pornography charges for allegedly filming the attack Some 5,000 people are currently living at the Moira migrant camp in Lesbos Four Pakistani teenagers have been arrested for allegedly gang-raping a 16-year-old boy in a Greek migrant camp and recording it on their mobile phones. The 16 and 17-year-olds were detained at the Moira camp on the island of Lesbos on Sunday and now face felony rape and child pornography charges. The four are accused of...