Free Republic

The UK-based Daily Telegraph has reported that Iranian assets are being funneled back to Teheran using financial intermediaries in Dubai. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad reportedly authorized the transfers as fears rise that Iranian financial institutions may come under European Union sanctions. The Iranian media has reported that the move caused tension between the president and the governor of Iran's central bank, Tahmaseb Mazaheri, and that Mazaheri may resign as a result. Mazaheri took over the leadership of the central bank in 2007, as he replaced outgoing governor Ibrahim Sheibani who resigned due to Ahmadinejad's moves to influence the central bank's...

European elections: extremist and fringe parties are the big winners Millions of voters deserted mainstream parties in the wake of the economic crisis David Charter and Rory Watson in Brussels Extremist and fringe parties were the beneficiaries as voters across Europe deserted mainstream parties or stayed at home in protest at the state of their economies. The Centre Left was set to be the big loser across the 27 European Union countries with the Centre Right consolidating its position as the largest group in the Parliament. Anti-immigrant parties gained MEPs in Austria, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, the Netherlands and Slovakia. Governing...

New Bronze Age findsSkeletal remains of a young man, dogs' skulls and pottery. Archaeologists have found 3,000-year-old remains near Enkhuizen, a long-established city to the north of Amsterdam, in a dig that has been going on since January. Until now, experts thought no one could have lived in the area during the Bronze Age because it was too water-logged. They have now been proved wrong.Water managementAround 1,000 BC, water-logged land was a major problem for human settlements in this region in the north of the Netherlands. However, even at this early date, people were taking measures to deal with the...

Sometimes a story just doesn't seem to be "all there." Cinnamon Stillwell suspected as much in a NewsBusters item on January 10: Call me overly suspicious, but the story of 16-year-old Farris Hassan traveling to Iraq on a whim strikes me as unbelievable. Hassan's interview with Rita Cosby of MSNBC, a Florida newspaper columnist's skepticism, and a January 18 posting by the Northeast Intelligence Network (NIN), which describes itself as "a small contingent of experienced investigators ..... founded by veteran private investigator Douglas J. Hagmann," all appear to confirm Stillwell's suspicions. What is known of Farris Hassan's saga at this...

A prayer leader in Tehran last week urged all Islamic countries to sever their ties with Denmark and with all “those who desecrate Prophet Muhammad.” According to a report in the Tehran Times, Ayatollah Khatami of the Assembly of Experts believes that the Danish cartoons depicting the religious figure are insulting and part of a plot to stop the spread of Islam in the world. “In Denmark, where the cartoons were published, the Quran became the best seller book, therefore they should know such actions will not serve their purpose,” Ayatollah Khatami told worshippers. Last month, newspapers in Denmark reprinted...

Dutch Islam film 'nearly ready' Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders has said that this week he will finish a film about Islam which has already triggered Muslim outrage. Mr Wilders said he was determined to release the film despite government warnings that this would damage Dutch political and economic interests. Mr Wilders says the film is about the Koran, without giving details. In the past, he has called for the Koran to be banned and likened it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

BACKSTORY 11-08-2002 Dateline: PARIS American billionaire investor George Soros, on trial in a 14-year-old insider trading case, told a court Friday that he didn't have privileged information when he bought shares in French bank Societe Generale. Soros and two other businessmen are on trial at the Paris Criminal Court, accused of benefiting from insider knowledge when they bought the bank's stock in 1988 before a failed takeover that pushed up the price. "I have been in business all my life and I think I know what is insider trading and what isn't," said the president of Soros Fund Management, in...

It has been an unusually violent week for Amsterdam's western Slotervaart district. Cars were torched and youths clashed with police on several consecutive nights after a 22-year-old ethnic Moroccan was shot dead at a police station. He was killed by a policewoman he had just stabbed a number of times. The riots that followed reminded Amsterdam's Chief Commissioner Bernard Welten of a major nightmare for Western European cities: violence on a Parisian scale. Every major town in the Netherlands has its share of so-called problem youths, the type of violent adolescents who gang up to terrorise the neighbourhood. Many of...

Funny commercial from an insurance company in Apeldoorn (The Netherlands), featuring Bill Clinton. E5vPDJY1xPE

An Iraqi man arrested this month at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport for immigration law violations was charged Wednesday with lying to authorities about his travels outside the United States and about anti-American material he was carrying. When Ali Mohammed Abboud Almosaleh, 40, arrived at the airport on a flight from Amsterdam July 7, he told customs officers he had been out of the country for one month and had traveled to Syria, court documents said. But he actually had been gone for five months and had visited Iraq. He told officers that his digital video discs with images of...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch police station trying to help Muslim detainees face Mecca for their prayers painted arrows in cells pointing in the wrong direction...

Earlier this week, on Tuesday July 26, 2005, a Dutch court sentenced Mohammed Bouyeri, the killer of Dutch film producer Theo Van Gogh, to life in prison. Following Bouyeri's confession of his gruesome killing of van Gogh, shocking details about the lives of Bouyeri and his friends began to emerge. They afford a telling glimpse into the secret world of Dutch Islamists who used fundamentalism as a veil to mask their sexual perversions. Bouyeri’s parents were first-generation immigrants. He completed secondary school in Amsterdam, then attended college for five years, but quit before receiving a degree. Shortly after the death of his mother, he turned to Islamic...

A terror suspect picked up in raids in the Netherlands had prepared a farewell video, according to Dutch prosecutors. Samir Azzouz was one of seven suspects arrested by police during a national anti-terror sweep last Friday. A video cassette showing the 19-year-old was found during the operation. Prosecutors said the tape shows Azzouz - a Dutchman of Moroccan descent - saying goodbye to his family and speaking of a 'deed'. It appeared to be modelled on video messages left behind by suicide bombers in the Palestinian territories and Iraq. Police believe the arrests thwarted an impending attack on politicians or...

AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - Armed men broke into an upscale Amsterdam home and kidnapped the daughter of a millionaire whose fortune came from selling chemicals, including to Iraq in the 1980s, police said Tuesday. Her children were left unharmed. Police said the gunmen stormed into the home of Claudia Melchers, 37, late Monday and took her away. They said they were treating it as a kidnapping. Melchers, who runs a catering company, is the daughter of Hans Melchers, who owns Melchemie Holland, which supplied chemicals to Iraq in the 1980s. It was unclear whether the kidnapping was related to the company's...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch police arrested 12 passengers on a U.S. Northwest Airlines plane bound for India which was forced to turn back to Amsterdam's Schiphol airport on Wednesday, news agency ANP reported. ANP quoted a police spokesman as saying 12 were arrested, but declined to give further details due to the ongoing investigation. Police officials were not immediately available to comment. The Dutch Defense Ministry said earlier the pilot decided to turn back after the crew said several of the 149 passengers on flight 42 to Mumbai were behaving suspiciously. Security has been increased at airports worldwide in the...

Demise of multiculturalism can help root out terrorism Jonathan Alter - For the Journal-Constitution Wednesday, June 28, 2006 Multiculturalism, rest in peace. There may have been no obituary for the notion that every group and every belief in a multiethnic society is deserving of mutual respect and tolerance. But thanks to jihadism, multiculturalism and moral relativism --- its necessary counterpart --- are now 6 feet under. Signs of multiculturalism's demise first began to appear in Holland, a nation that officially embraced its precepts in 1983. In theory, the Minderhedennota, or minorities policy, extended the Dutch tradition of tolerance to a...

Would you write the name you’d like to use here, and your real name there?” asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague. An hour earlier I’d been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn’t known where I would be staying, or where I would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk about Islam. Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn’s political party, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and...

A SYDNEY man allegedly telephoned the suspected leader of al-Qa'ida in Spain – Abu Dahdah – seeking help to move a "brother" and his family throughout Europe. The allegation about former Qantas baggage handler Bilal Khazal – made in documents tendered in Mr Dahdah's terrorism trial – contradicts claims by him that he had never spoken to the alleged terror chief, or even knew who he was. As more details of a network of alleged terror supporters in Australia emerged yesterday, it has been claimed a second Australian named in the Spanish court documents, Melbourne cleric Sheikh Mohammed Omran, was...

Al Qaeda 'financed from Eindhoven' 23 April 2003 AMSTERDAM — A director of the Islamic foundation Al Waqf al Islami in Eindhoven, Ahmad Al Hussaini, is included in a list of 20 Saudi Arabian business leaders alleged to have provided financial support to the Al Qaeda terror network. A prominent Al Qaeda member drew up the list, according to US firm JCB Consulting, which is investigating the financing of Osama bin Laden's network on behalf of 600 families of the September 11 terrorist attack victims. JCB spokesman Damien Martinez told Dutch current affairs television programme Nova on Tuesday night...

The 'time of cosy tea-drinking' with Muslims is over, says the minister who would ban the burka (ROBERT VOS/EPA) THE Netherlands is likely to become the first country in Europe to ban the burka, under government proposals that would bring in some of the toughest curbs on Muslim clothing in the world. The country’s hardline Integration Minister, Rita Verdonk, known as the Iron Lady for her series of tough anti-immigration measures, told Parliament that she was going to investigate where and when the burka should be banned. The burka, traditional clothing in some Islamic societies, covers a woman’s face and...

NAVAL AIR STATION PENSACOLA, Fla. (NNS) -- Three Canadian ships carrying approximately 1,000 Canadian military personnel and pallets of supplies and heavy equipment arrived at Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola Sept. 12. The Canadian ships’ arrival came after an adventurous transit from Canada, around a hurricane in the north Atlantic, to the tip of Florida’s southern coast and then north to Pensacola. Canada joins five other countries, including Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, France and the United Kingdom, in ongoing support of relief efforts to the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. The ship’s weeklong journey to assist began long before the...

By Abigail R. Esman World Defense Review columnist Mohammed Bouyeri begged his government for death. Instead, they did something worse: They gave him life. Bouyeri, 27, is the Dutch-born Moroccan Muslim radical who slaughtered filmmaker and columnist Theo van Gogh on the streets of Amsterdam last November 2, shooting him multiple times before slashing his throat with a machete and stabbing a five-page letter into his gut. Afterwards, shocked bystanders watched in horror and amazement as Bouyeri calmly walked away, as one eyewitness described it, "as if he were just out walking his dog." That, of course, had been the...

WTC Maintenance Worker Announces Plans For Upcoming National 9/11 Truth Speaking Tour While Appearing As Guest On St. Louis Drive-Time Morning Radio Show Wiliam Rodriguez, a man on a mission in memory of 200 friends lost at the WTC, is taking his story directly to the people as he looks for way to by-pass media and government censorship over his 9/11 story that blows the official account of how the towers collapsed "sky high." July 15, 2005 By Greg Szymanski Four long years have passed since 9/11and government officials and media heads are still throwing under the rug eye-witness testimony...

HAVANA (Reuters) - How did a well-to-do country boy with a conservative education called Fidel Castro turn into a fearless rebel and enduring leader of one of the world's last Marxist states? For Finnish documentary-maker Folke West, granted rare access to early Cuban state archives, the answer lies in Castro's formative years, long before he became a Communist. His 2-hour, 50-minute "Young Fidel" traces the Cuban president's life from his father's ranch through Jesuit schools and volatile university politics to a nearly suicidal raid on Cuba's second largest military garrison, prison and finally exile in 1955. "Most biographies jump most...

Fox News reported, just minutes ago, that authorities are questioning a UN employee from the Netherlands in regards to the explosive devices that were set off this morning at the Brit. Consulate in NY.

THE looming “catastrophe” of France and the Netherlands rejecting the European constitution is causing alarm in Brussels and apocalyptic warnings about the future of the European Union. Debate is raging about what to do if the French vote “no” on May 29, but there is a growing consensus that it would be a turning point, marking the end of 50 years of “ever closer union”, threatening the single currency and halting enlargement, particularly for Turkey. Some predict the EU’s fragmentation, with groups of member states increasingly banding together to pursue pet projects. Romano Prodi, the former European Commission President, said...

Bellevue firm tied to pro-Hamas Web siteBy Peter LewisSeattle Times staff reporter, April 23, 2005 A Bellevue company has helped support a Web site dedicated to advancing Hamas, an Islamic organization the U.S. government considers a terrorist group. The site features videos of Humvees blowing up and U.S. soldiers being killed. The site was down temporarily yesterday but was working again last evening. Content included a training video of the "Mujahideen Army" and a message to the American people that said in part they had "elected criminals and are responsible for their actions." The Bellevue company, eNom, apparently is...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A KLM Royal Dutch Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Mexico City was blocked mid-flight by U.S. authorities for having two undesirable people on board, the airline said Sunday. KLM spokesman Bart Koster said the flight was approaching the U.S. border from Canada when the pilots was told they would not be allowed to enter U.S. airspace because of the two passengers who were considered a risk, apparently due to terrorism fears. Their names were not released. The flight turned around and went back to Amsterdam. A new flight traveled as normal on Saturday, without the two...

Fifteen minutes after KLM Flight 685 took off from Amsterdam for Mexico City on April 8, Mexican authorities forwarded the names of all the passengers to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. The reason: the flight was scheduled to pass through U.S. airspace. by the time the Boeing 747 had finished its three-hour crossing of the Atlantic, Homeland Security screeners were on high alert. The names of two Saudi passengers aboard the KLM flight had begun producing "hits" on the screening center's lists of 70,000 suspect foreigners. The two Saudis, the database reported, were brothers and pilots who had attended...

A High-Risk Nuclear Stakeout The U.S. took too long to act, some experts say, letting a Pakistani scientist sell illicit technology well after it knew of his operation. By Douglas Frantz, Times Staff Writer WASHINGTON — Nuclear warhead plans that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan sold to Libya were more complete and detailed than previously disclosed, raising new concerns about the cost of Washington's watch-and-wait policy before Khan and his global black market were shut down last year. Two Western nuclear weapons specialists who have examined the top-secret designs say the hundreds of pages of engineering drawings and handwritten notes...

An incident earlier this week in the Dutch capital, Amsterdam, has sparked new controversy as the victim of a petty crime faces charges of manslaughter for the death of one of the youths who robbed her. A woman drives her car at a young man of Moroccan origin who's just stolen her bag, and he dies when the vehicle crushes him against a tree. This incident took place in the Dutch capital earlier this week and has sparked a new wave of controversy in the Netherlands, with people asking whether it was manslaughter or a tragic accident. While friends of...

When experts from the US and the IAEA came upon blueprints for a 10-kiloton atomic bomb in the files of the Libyan weapons program earlier this year, they found themselves caught between gravity and pettiness. The discovery gave the experts a new appreciation of the audacity of the rogue nuclear network led by A. Q. Khan, a chief architect of Pakistan's bomb. Intelligence officials had watched Dr. Khan for years and suspected that he was trafficking in machinery for enriching uranium to make fuel for warheads. But the detailed design represented a new level of danger, particularly since the Libyans...

According to security services, a Dutch chemist is suspected to have been involved with the banned weapons program of Saddam Hussein. It is the 60 year old Frans van A. from Den Helder. This was reported by the newspaper 'De Telegraaf' on Saturday. Van A. is probebly hiding in Baghdad, heavily guarded by the Iraqi Republican Guards. He has been under surveillance by the Dutch security service AIVD for several years. According to the AIVD, it is an 'unique situation', because Van A. is one of the few foreigners that has intensive contacts to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Also...

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) Prosecutors said on Tuesday they will charge a Dutch chemicals dealer as an accomplice to genocide for supplying Saddam Hussein with lethal chemicals used in the 1988 chemical attack on a Kurdish town that killed an estimated 5,000 civilians. Wim de Bruin of the national prosecutor's office said the suspect, who was arrested in Amsterdam on Monday, will face charges ''for violating the laws of war and involvement in genocide.'' Prosecutors said Frans van Anraat, a 62-year-old chemicals dealer, had been a suspect since 1989, when he was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the...

A MAN suspected of helping former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein commit war crimes and genocide by supplying him with materials for chemical weapons, has been arrested by the Netherlands authorities. Prosecutors said the 62-year-old man, identified as Frans van Anraat by Dutch television, was arrested at his Amsterdam home on Monday as he prepared to leave the Netherlands. "According to the United Nations, the Dutchman is one of the most important middlemen in Iraq’s acquisition of chemical material," Dutch prosecutors said in a statement. "The man is suspected of supplying thousands of tonnes of raw materials for chemical weapons between...

I have read several comments by FReepers about the slaugthering of Theo van Gogh and see a lot of half truths about it. Therefore I will write this short report from Utrecht (The Netherlands). Theo van Gogh was a very famous film maker and columnist in The Netherlands. His movies were about several topics including a remake of Romeo and Julia with a Dutch girl and a Morrocan immigrant. He was a very generous guy as all his friends mentioned at the funeral and a good citizen (working for his son's sportclub). His other side was his fun in provoking...

Why I lifted the veil on Islam (Filed: 07/09/2004) She likens Mohammed to a 'lecherous tyrant' and blames the Koran for the abuse of her fellow Muslim women. Now the Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is planning to bring her outspoken views - and armed bodyguards - to Britain. She talks to Olga Craig At the main mosque in Rotterdam, the imam is doing a brisk trade. There are no hawkers, no hard sell; only an orderly line of figures snaking down the side-street and around the corner. In turn, each hands over five euros, takes a book and leaves....

Yellowcake Found in Rotterdam Harbor May Have Originated in Iraq By Toby Sterling Associated Press Writer Published: Jan 15, 2004 AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - A recycling company found uranium oxide - a radioactive material also known as yellowcake - in a shipment of scrap steel it believes originally came from Iraq, the company said Thursday. Paul de Bruin, spokesman for Rotterdam-based Jewometaal, said that the shipment was passed on last month from a Jordan metal dealer who was unaware it contained any forbidden materials. "I've dealt with this man for 15 years and he says he's sure it came from...

It is playing a key role in curbing and caging North Korean dictator Kim Jong-Il. It played a key role in disarming Libya, discovering and rolling up the Pakistani A.Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network, and has become a framework for international military and police exercises organized by the United States. Its membership includes most of the world's largest economic powers, most of the world's largest military powers, and most of the most influential states on earth. The United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Russia, the Netherlands, France, Australia and Germany are among its 15 member states, and it is one...

MINNEAPOLIS - The war on terrorism is again at Minnesota's front door after federal authorities arrested a man who they suspect has terrorism ties. Federal sources told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS the man was arrested last Wednesday at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Sources in the Twin Cities and in Washington D.C. said the man arrived on a flight and was taken into federal custody. Along the way, customs agents found disturbing items in his possession. The U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed to 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS that Ali Mohamed Almosaleh is in federal custody in the Twin Cities. He...

FORT WORTH -- Lockheed Martin Aeronautics workers in Fort Worth on Monday began assembling the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jet. The stealth plane is designed to reach supersonic speeds and land vertically. Dignitaries including U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison were on hand as workers started with the fuselage. Assembly of the wings is expected later this summer. The entire plane is scheduled for assembly next year. Test flights are planned for 2006. The F-35 has been under development since October 2001. That's when Lockheed was awarded the Defense Department's biggest contract in history -- at least $200 billion. Canada, Great...

<p>Outspoken Liberal VVD [center-right party] MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali has lodged a police report after again being threatened with death — this time in a rap music song. A rap group in The Hague, DHC, uses racist and sexist language in its song Hirsi Ali Diss. The song, which is being circulated on the internet, also threatens her with death. But the musicians claim they did not intend to threaten the Islamic-born MP and instead wanted to express themselves. Hirsi Ali has previously been threatened for speaking out against the Islamic faith and its treatment of women.</p>

Key allies of the US in Iraq - Poland, Italy, the Netherlands and Hungary - have extended their deployment of troops until the end of the year. The United States has asked other nations to keep their troops in Iraq after the US-led coalition hands over power to an interim Iraqi government on June 30 amid continued violence. The commitments come after the beheading of a South Korean hostage by Muslim militants in Iraq show had demanded troop withdrawal. South Korea vowed to go ahead with plans to deploy 3,000 more troops, adding the 670 already in Iraq. The US-led...

The United Nations has determined that Saddam Hussein shipped weapons of mass destruction components as well as medium-range ballistic missiles before, during and after the U.S.-led war against Iraq in 2003. The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission briefed the Security Council on new findings that could help trace the whereabouts of Saddam's missile and WMD program. The briefing contained satellite photographs that demonstrated the speed with which Saddam dismantled his missile and WMD sites before and during the war. Council members were shown photographs of a ballistic missile site outside Baghdad in May 2003, and then saw a satellite...

A MAN linked to Al-Qaeda and believed to have helped to mastermind the Madrid train bombings was overheard last month describing a plot for a woman to carry out a chemical or germ attack in America that he said would “wipe out an entire neighbourhood”. The Italian warrant for the arrest of Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed, 32, an Egyptian seized in a suburb of Milan last week, details transcripts of bugged conversations and telephone calls in which he not only boasted of his involvement in the Spanish attack of March 11 but also spoke of future plans. The Spanish government...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - U.N. weapons experts have found 20 engines used in banned Iraqi missiles in a Jordan scrapyard along with other equipment that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction, an official said Wednesday. The discoveries were revealed to the U.N. Security Council by acting chief U.N. inspector Demetrius Perricos during in a closed-door briefing. The text was obtained by The Associated Press. The U.N. team was following up on an earlier discovery of a similar Al Samoud 2 engine in a scrapyard in the Dutch port of Rotterdam. Perricos said inspectors also want to check...

Pacific Rim Bureau (CNSNews.com) - The United States is leading a military exercise in the Arabian Sea this weekend that will further test the ability of a new security coalition to prevent rogue states and terrorists from transferring non-conventional weapons by sea. The air and sea maneuver involves naval forces from Australia, Singapore, Spain, Britain and Italy, with several other countries sending observers. The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched by President Bush last year, aims to prevent the illicit buying or selling of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and related technology by stopping and searching suspect ships or planes. The...

The announcement of Saddam Hussein's arrest has been warmly welcomed in Dutch political circles. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has sent a congratulatory telegram to US President George W. Bush. New Foreign Minister Ben Bot said the former leader of Iraq should be tried in his own country, arguing that a trial elsewhere, such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague, would send the wrong signal to the Iraqi people. The parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrats described the arrest as the best news this year. His Conservative opposite number called on the international community to work together...

RIJSWIJK, Saturday - Justice Minister Jan Piet Hein Donner's policy of taking no action anymore against cocaine smugglers at Schiphol airport applies to all couriers carrying less than 3 kilograms. They will not be arrested, fined or tried. Confidential sources confirmed on Friday that Donner has doubled the already controversial threshold of 1.5 kilos to 3 kilos of cocaine. Whether the drugs have been swallowed or hidden in suitcases does not matter; they will be confiscated and the courier released. Foreigners will be sent back by the next plane, but couriers from the Netherlands Antilles may stay in the Netherlands....

Dutch Crown Prince Willem-Alexander and Princess Maxima are celebrating the birth of their first child, who is second in line to the throne. The Argentine-born princess gave birth on Sunday to the 3.3kg (7.3lb) girl. Prince Willem-Alexander showed off his new baby to the media at a news conference shown live on Dutch television. "Although many babies are born each day, we believe this is the most beautiful baby in the world," he said. The baby has not yet been named. Father barred The couple married in Amsterdam in February 2002. The bride's father was not permitted to attend because...