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Egypt and Saudi Arabia are interested in buying two French Mistral warships that had been sold to Russia before Paris scrapped the deal, French media reported Friday, citing an official French source. "Egypt and Saudi Arabia are desperate to buy two Mistrals," an unnamed official French source told France’s leading daily, Le Monde. “King Salman of Saudi Arabia wants to build a fleet in Egypt which could project regional power in the Red Sea and Mediterranean," said the source. "Some countries in the region have displayed a marked interest in the Mistrals with the aim of establishing a [regional] maritime...

Spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by immigrants from the Middle East and the Balkans are turning parts of Duisburg, a key German industrial city, into “areas of lawlessness”—areas that are becoming de facto “no-go” zones for police, according to a confidential police report that was leaked to the German news magazine Der Spiegel. The report, produced by the police headquarters of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany (and also the state with the largest Muslim population in Germany), warns that the government is losing control over problem neighborhoods and that the ability of police to maintain public...

Police in Hamburg shut down the notorious al-Quds mosque, renamed the Taiba mosque in 2008, led by German-Syrian national and voluntary imam Mamoun Darkazanli. Darkazanli (a.k.a. Abu Ilyas al-Suri) has been a suspected al-Qaeda operative, primarily as a financier and logistician, in the European Union for close to two decades. Long active in al-Qaeda circles, Darkazanli first surfaced on the radar of Western intelligence agencies when he purportedly helped procure a cargo ship named “Jennifer” for Osama bin Laden as early as 1993 (Hamburger Abendblatt, October 16, 2004). Germany’s Bundeskriminalamt (BKA- Federal Criminal Police Office) admitted that it had been...

Turkey has killed 260 Kurdish militants in a week-long air offensive on targets in northern Iraq, official media claimed Saturday, as regional Iraqi authorities said it was time the rebels pulled out with concerns growing over civilian casualties. Ankara has launched a two-pronged "anti-terror" offensive against Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants based in northern Iraq after a wave of attacks inside Turkey. But so far the bombardments have focused far more on the Kurdish rebels and a report by the official Anatolia news agency of 260 alleged PKK militants killed was the first...

Damning evidence was found when US special forces killed Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Sayyaf in May, revealing that NATO member Turkey has in fact been collaborating with the brutal jihadists. The British Guardian reported on Sunday that when Abu Sayyaf’s compound was raided in eastern Syria, it was discovered that Turkey is the main buyer of smuggled ISIS oil which was managed by Abu Sayyaf to economically prop up the terror group. The report quoted a senior Western official, who told the Observer that the findings at the compound showed direct deals between Turkish officials and ISIS leaders is...

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DETROIT -- Fiat Chrysler must offer to buy back from customers hundreds of thousands of Ram pickup trucks and other vehicles -- the biggest such action in U.S. history -- as part of a costly deal with safety regulators to settle legal problems in about two dozen recalls. The Italian-American automaker also faces a record civil fine of up to $105 million. In addition, owners of more than a million older Jeeps with vulnerable rear-mounted gas tanks will be able to trade them in or be paid by Chrysler to have the vehicles repaired. ~SNIP~ Vehicles eligible for buy-back offer...

EU bosses are pushing to resolve a clash between industry and environmental policy with a new strategy to phase out funding to export coal technology to developing nations, ahead of a meeting of leading economic powers on the issue. The European Commission, the EU executive, urges tougher rules on when subsidies, known as coal export credits, can be used in a paper seen by Reuters, ahead of interim talks this week. Political pressure is growing to reach agreement on restricting the coal subsidies before United Nations climate change talks in Paris at the end of the year. But opposition is...

With the turmoil in Greece proving once and for all that in the absence of a fiscal union, the EMU simply cannot function or if it does, it will be subject to episodic crises stemming from endemic differences of opinion on fiscal policy, outsiders could be forgiven for looking upon the currency experiment as an abject failure. Indeed, the struggle to secure a bridge loan for Athens last week underscored the degree to which non-euro countries are reluctant to put their taxpayers on the hook for problems which they believe are the result of an ill-fated attempt to unite fundamentally...

Suppose we had a war and Britain didn’t come? Which is sort of what happened in Syria when President Obama, on the advice of Samantha Power, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, declared that we must go in now, this afternoon. No time to discuss. Much as we had heard before in the maelstrom which is the Middle East. Surely, our allies, by which I think we mean Europe, the Atlantic Alliance or “the West,” led of course by our trusty sidekick, Britain, will fall in line. But overnight, the British Parliament voted to just say no. And we...

Leading anti-discrimination campaigners issued a stinging attack on Russia’s racism record on Saturday night and said England should boycott the 2018 World Cup if they qualify unless the situation improves. Brazilian striker Hulk, Russian football’s record signing, was pulled out of yesterday’s draw ceremony for what organisers said were ‘purely sporting reasons’ in order to play for Zenit St Petersburg. But just days earlier, Hulk said racism happens at ‘almost every game’ in the Russian league and was a genuine threat to the World Cup. Meanwhile, Ghanaian officials condemned the ‘vile racist abuse’ meted out to former Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel...

I am reading Day of Jackal, I had read it 30 years ago but in my re-reading I have realized that France, even though unstable politically, was run by competent individuals interested in securing the history and legacy of France. Charles de Gaulle might have a autocratic and I am opposed to such, but he is miles ahead of Francois Holland. When did France turn the corner for the worse? Was it the 70s?

Baron John Sewel, who is tasked with upholding standards in the House of Lords, was filmed by a newspaper allegedly snorting cocaine off a prostitute’s breasts.

IT WAS a winter night in 1854 when nine men broke into the building site of the Washington Monument, stole a slab of marble and—according to a later confession—heaved it into the Potomac river. The stone, which once belonged to the Temple of Concord in Rome, was a gift from Pope Pius IX. The attackers belonged to an anti-Catholic political movement, nicknamed “Know-Nothings” on account of their strict code of secrecy. Their movement considered Catholic immigrants a menace to the republic. At its peak, followers included dozens of congressmen, some governors and an ex-president. The Know-Nothings feared that the papal...

BUDAPEST (AFP) - Hungary will finish building its anti-migrant fence on its southern border with Serbia by August 31, ahead of a previous November deadline, Prime Minister Viktor Orban said Saturday. "The fence will be built by August 31, any schedules different from that are invalid," Orban told an audience at a Hungarian-language summer university in Baile Tusnad in Romania, according to Hungarian state news agency MTI. Work began last week on a short test section of the four-metre-high (12 feet) fence, a bid to stem a surge in 2015 in the number of migrants and asylum-seekers crossing into Hungary...

Members of the Berlin faction of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) voted against gay marriage in a poll on Friday, denting hopes the Chancellor’s staunch opposition could be swayed. The Berlin faction of the CDU announced on Friday that 45 percent of its members voted against gay marriage while 35 percent voted in support in a survey, newspaper Tagesspiegel reported. […] The recent passage of same-sex marriage in Ireland and a US Supreme Court decision in favour of gay marriage has put more pressure on Merkel and her conservative Union (CDU and Christian Social Union parties), who...

US Secretary of State John Kerry indirectly conceded that the US would defend Iran's nuclear program from Israeli sabotage on Thursday, in a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he was grilled over the deal reached last Tuesday. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) put Kerry on the spot when he asked him and Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz whether the controversial articles in Annex III on page 142 of the 159-page deal would stipulate that the US block Israeli attempts to scupper the Iranian nuclear threat. The articles in question state that the US, world powers and the...

“(The EU) is part of the cornerstone of institutions built after World War Two that has made the world safer and more prosperous. “We want to make sure that the United Kingdom continues to have that influence,” Mr Obama told the BBC, reinforcing the importance Washington places on the UK remaining in the EU. He has previously acknowledged the need to try and “fix what is broken” with the EU before breaking the relationship. Mr Obama said David Cameron was an outstanding partner and praised the Government for committing earlier this month to Nato's defence spending pledge of two per...

In defiance of the international arms embargo, Iran last week placed an order with Moscow for a huge fleet of 100 Russian IL78 MKI tanker aircraft (NATO: Midas) for refueling its air force in mid-flight, thereby extending its range to 7,300 km. This is reported exclusively by DEBKAfile from its military and intelligence sources. The transaction runs contrary to the terms of the nuclear accord the six world powers and Iran signed in Vienna earlier this month. These tanker planes can simultaneously refuel six to eight warplanes. Their acquisition brings Israel, 1.200km away – as well the rest of the...

Thousands of desperate migrants are camping out on roundabouts amid squalid camps overflowing with rubbish on the Greek holiday islands of Lesbos and Kos. Around 5,000 people have arrived in Lesbos in the past few days and many are forced to sleep outside amid broken glass and piles of rubble without access to water, shelter, toilets or medical care. Shocking images taken at the official Moria camp near the main town of Mitlini show filthy and overflowing latrines strewn with discarded plastic bottles and tents perched next to piles of rubbish.