Free Republic

The Trump administration declared its firm support Thursday for a bill that would suspend U.S. financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority until it ends what critics have described as a long-standing practice of rewarding Palestinians who kill Americans and Israelis. The State Department announcement comes nearly six weeks after the Senate Foreign Relations Committee backed the measure. The legislation, which is named after an American who was stabbed to death in Israel by a Palestinian, reflects bipartisan outrage over what lawmakers have termed a “pay to slay” program endorsed by the Palestinian Authority. “The Trump administration strongly supports the Taylor...

The Swiss may get the chance to vote on the introduction of a nationwide ban on the burqa after campaigners from the so-called Egerkingen committee succeeded in gathering the required number of signatures to push the issue to a referendum. In March 2016, the committee launched a popular initiative to ban the burqa and other full-face coverings and had until this month to gather the 100,000 signatures required under the Swiss system of direct democracy to push it to a public vote. On Wednesday, Swiss People’s Party (SVP) MP Walter Wobmann, a leading member of the committee and a long-time...

Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi has canceled plans to attend the U.N. General Assembly, with her country drawing international criticism for violence that has driven at least 370,000 ethnic Rohingya Muslims from the country in less than three weeks. […] Attacks by an insurgent Rohingya group on police outposts Aug. 25 have set off a wave of violence in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, with hundreds dead and thousands of homes burned — mostly Rohingya in both cases. …

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany, as well as the German Muslim League (Deutsche Muslim Liga) and the Islamische Zeitung newspaper on Monday published the results of a survey sent to the parties expected to be voted in to the next Bundestag. Of the 61.5 million eligible voters in Germany’s nationwide elections due to be held September 24, about 1.5 million are Muslim. The survey’s publishers Aiman Mazyek, Belal El-Mogaddedi and Sulaiman Wilms wrote that, like all citizens, these voters were interested in issues surrounding pensions, climate protection and education — parties’ positions on these were well-covered. “However, a...

Heckler & Koch, the German weapons manufacturer whose guns are estimated to have killed more than 2 million people since the company was founded in 1949, has quietly adopted the most ethical sales policy of any gunmaker in the world. The company has pledged no longer to sell arms into warzones or to countries that violate corruption and democracy standards, including Saudi Arabia, Israel, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, or any African countries. [Emphasis Mine]

A mural in Calais by the British street artist Banksy, whose works can sell for hundreds of thousands of euros, has been painted over by the owner of the building because he said the house was starting to look shabby and needed an upgrade. The stencil was a version of the painting The Raft of the Medusa by Théodore Géricault, showing a group of desperate survivors on a raft after a wreck. It was given a modern, refugee-themed twist — a nod to the notorious “Jungle” refugee camp in Calais that housed thousands of refugees hoping to get to Britain...

Rohingya rebels, whose attack on Burma security forces last month triggered military reprisals, have declared a month-long truce as refugees continue to flood across the border into Bangladesh — and scant basic resources, hunger and illness. The band of Muslim insurgents calling itself the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army issued the truce statement on its Twitter account and urged Burma’s government to reciprocate in order to assist all victims regardless of their background. The rebels, who say they are fighting to protect their minority members against government-sponsored persecution, launched their first known attacks last October and again on August 25. According...

Tony Blair has defended his call for new controls on EU migration as a cabinet minister accused him of a belated “epiphany” on the issue. The ex-PM said the UK could stay in the EU after all with new curbs in place. He claimed this would address people’s “grievances” without the “sledgehammer” of Brexit. Critics have pointed to his Labour government’s decision not to apply transitional controls to eastern European migrants in 2004. Mr. Blair’s proposals are to “tighten” existing free movement rules, including on benefit entitlement, and seek to negotiate an “emergency brake” on EU migration in certain sectors....

Turkey on Saturday asked citizens to be “cautious” in Germany and stay away from political gatherings ahead of this month’s election, as tensions ratcheted between the NATO allies. Ties have plummeted since last year’s attempted overthrow of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Germany’s strong criticism of an ensuing crackdown which saw more than 50,000 people arrested. Relations further deteriorated after the detention of several German citizens including Deniz Yucel, a correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper. The Turkish foreign ministry urged citizens living in Germany or planning to travel there “to be cautious, taking into account the situation in Germany...

When the German Chancellor was confronted by whistles and catcalls during an election event in east German town of Torgau on Wednesday, she attempted to turn the boos to her advantage. People in other countries “would be delighted if they could demonstrate in this way,” Angela Merkel said, as more than 100 far-right protests attempted to drown out her speech with boos, whistles and cries of “traitor.” “That’s why we should be happy that we have democracy in Germany and that we can vote freely. Other people can only dream of that,” the Chancellor said, according to Die Welt. Then,...

An industrial tribunal on Thursday hears the case of four Muslim former security guards at Orly airport who say they were discriminated against when sacked for refusing to shave off their beards in the wake of the November 2015 terror attacks in Paris. Soon after those jihadist attacks that left 130 dead, management from the Securitas security firm summoned several male staff members working for it at Orly, all of them Muslim and all of them bearded. They were told that with passengers on edge, it would be appreciated if they could all trim or shave off their beards to...

Sweden’s main opposition party, the Moderates, want to tighten the rules for people seeking Swedish citizenship, suggesting a string of new measures they say will encourage integration and better correspond to the rules of other Nordic countries and Germany. In an opinion piece published in daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter on Thursday, Moderate party members Tomas Tobé and Gunnar Strömmer said that the rules to become Swedish aren’t strict enough, and in some cases even hamper the integration of the country’s new citizens. “Sweden should be an open country (…) But at the same time we have to make demands: Everyone...

Libertarianism.org, a project from the Cato Institute, claimed “Islamic teachings are consistent [with] many libertarian principles, such as tolerance, property rights & individualism” in a tweet on Tuesday. In the post linked in the tweet, Libertarianism.org also praised Ibn Khaldun as a libertarian hero, describing him as “the most consistent of the many free-market economists in Islamic history,” despite the fact that Khaldun promoted slavery. “Therefore, the Negro nation are, as a rule, submissive to slavery, because [Negroes] have little [that is essentially] human and have attributes that are quite similar to those of dumb animals, as we have stated,”...

Under Donald Trump, Washington is distancing itself from the nuclear deal with Iran. The US president insists Tehran has been violating the agreement, without citing concrete proof. For Europe, it’s a risky move. US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley has been deliberately ambiguous with regard to the Iran nuclear deal. No, she is not in favor of casting doubt on the legal basis of the agreement. But, as she told an audience at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, one thing must be clear: Should Donald Trump decide to do so, then he would have firm ground...

The European Union has ordered Sweden to end its border controls by mid-November, saying the reasons for putting them into place don’t exist anymore. At a press conference in Brussels on Wednesday, the EU’s migrant commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said it will not allow the Nordic country to extend its border controls between Sweden and Denmark. “There won’t be an extension. The border controls are coming to an end in two months. The prerequisites for granting [the extensions] don’t exist anymore.” During the height of Europe’s migrant crisis, Sweden was, along with Denmark, Germany, Austria and Norway, granted an exception from...

The Palestinian Authority blasted US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman, calling recent comments made by the Ambassador regarding Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria “unacceptable”. Last week, Ambassador Friedman spoke with the Jerusalem Post, which published the interview on Friday. During the course of the interview, Friedman referred to PA claims that Israel is “occupying” Judea and Samaria, calling Israel’s presence in the area the “alleged occupation”. In response, Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization penned a letter to diplomats lambasting Ambassador Friedman for his comments, calling them unacceptable, AFP reported Wednesday. …

Nine hundred and thirteen refugees were admitted to the United States during August, the first time the monthly intake has dropped below one thousand in 15 years, and the smallest number of monthly admissions since October 2002. August’s arrivals followed a pattern evident since the start of the Trump administration – a declining proportion of Muslims in comparison to Christians and adherents of other faiths. Of the 913 refugees admitted during the month, 551 (60.3 percent) were Christians, with the biggest groups including 185 Pentecostalists from Ukraine and 53 Baptists, also from Ukraine. A significantly smaller group, 220 (24.1 percent)...

Despite the string of terror attacks in Paris since 2015, Parisians feel secure, according to the latest in-depth survey by the Paris region’s Urban Planning Institute. The results of the enquiry, which attempts to gauge how safe residents of the French capital feel going about their daily lives, are published every two years. Conducted by market research company Kantar TNS, the survey, introduced in 1998, asks 10,500 people living in the Paris area, aged 15 and up, a series of “rigorous” questions to see how far people living there feel secure. And the results were perhaps a bit surprising. According...

Denmark’s government is seeking to introduce requirements which will limit the access of foreign residents to the country’s welfare system. Savings made from new curbs could help to finance tax cuts in several areas announced by the government on Tuesday, reports broadcaster DR. New regulations proposed by the government would prevent in principle non-Danish citizens from being eligible for certain welfare payments (known in Danish as overførselsindkomster) from their first day in the country. “I was keen for people to be unable to come to Denmark and receive welfare payments before entering the labor market,” Finance Minister Kristian Jensen told...

Prosecutors at the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe have had their work cut out dealing with criminal complaints against Chancellor Angela Merkel since she opened Germany’s borders to asylum seekers in September 2015. Over the last two years prosecutors in Karlsruhe have dismissed 1,000 complaints of high treason against Merkel, the Mannheimer Morgen reported on Wednesday. “The complaints against the Chancellor proved to have no basis to them,” said prosecution spokeswoman Frauke Köhle. A large amount of the complaints came from supporters of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, according to the report. Federal prosecutors are responsible for following...