Free Republic

A BARMY hate preacher has a “Hitler-like” vision of a British Islamic state where Christians have to shave their heads and ride donkeys.Bearded Abu Waleed, 35, who is linked to “brainwashing” three Brits fighting in Iraq and Syria, ranted that only Muslims should be allowed to walk along the the country’s pavements. People of other faiths would have to walk in the middle of the road, dodging traffic, wearing odd shoes and with red belts round their necks. Waleed added that Christians would be allowed to keep their churches but he said they would not be permitted to ring the...

Wales Online Campaign to improve Rorke's Drift hero's grave Pte James Owen, played by Ivor Emmanuel in Zulu was laid to rest in Swansea, now plans are underway to re-dedicate his grave Image is from clip of the 1964 movie Zulu Private Owen, Ivor Emmanuel (left) with Lieutenant John Chard, Stanley Baker in the classic film Zulu June 29, 2014 06:00 By Robin Turner His role in the battle of Rorke’s Drift was immortalised in the 1964 movie Zulu, yet James Owen’s grave is marked with just a few rotten pieces of wood bearing his name. Now a campaign...

JOBLESS EU migrants who have been claiming benefits for the past six months and show no signs of being able to find work could be forced to leave the UK from Tuesday. It is one of a set of measures designed to give Britain the toughest controls on migrants in the world. Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith said: “The public have sent a clear message that they are concerned that migrants should contribute to this country and not be drawn here by the attractiveness of our benefits system. “Freedom of movement is not a freedom to pick and...

The Prince of Wales is determined that his campaigning and charity work will continue even after he becomes King, emphasising the importance of what he calls “sticking to your guns. In a rare interview Prince Charles let it be known that he wants the trusts and charities he has set up – whose work covers a broad range of social and environmental concerns – to carry on when he assumes the role of Monarch. That raises the prospect of a future King Charles III being seen as a supporter of causes, some of which may come into conflict with the...

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...

A Muslim man was yesterday jailed for 29 years after being found guilty of stabbing a pregnant Romanian prostitute to death after warning her not to work near a mosque.The Daily Mail reports that Farooq Shah, 21, stabbed Mariana Popa in the chest while riding his bicycle along a stretch of road in Ilford, Essex, known for its sex workers. After being stabbed, Miss Popa staggered into a fast-food shop and collapsed in a pool of blood while her killer cycled away. She was pregnant with her second child.CCTV footage showed Farooq Shah waiting on the forecourt of a petrol...

Comedian Russell Brand condemned Fox News as a “fanatical terrorist propaganda organization” during a heated, 10-minute tirade recorded on video and uploaded to the web this week. The 39-year-old British stand-up comic-turned-actor is now making headlines for the video footage, which was uploaded to his personal YouTube channel on Tuesday this week under the title: Is Fox News More Dangerous than Isis? Throughout the duration of the clip, Brand responded with sheer outrage to recent remarks made on-air by Fox host Jeanine Pirro, a former prosecutor, who said during a broadcast of her program last weekend that the United States...

NINETY-year-old Sidney Marshall made an extraordinary sacrifice for his country. (snip) But Marshall, who died at his home in St Annes, England, on June 16, has few living relatives. And those who are still alive live considerable distances away. Undertakers fear no one will attend his funeral service. So a local funeral director has made an extraordinary plea to fellow Armed Forces personnel: Come to Mr Marshall’s funeral. Don’t let this brave man be sent off alone.

The Soobrazitelny head corvette (RIA Novosti / Alexei Danichev) A British frigate was dispatched to track a mysterious battleship that covertly sneaked in close to Denmark’s coast. The ship turned out to be Russian stealth corvette conducting a complex checkout of battle systems, according to British media. Russian naval drills in the Baltic Sea drew some heat after British HMS Montrose (a type 23 frigate) had to establish line-of-sight range with an unidentified warship cruising off the territorial waters of NATO-member Denmark on June 19. In harsh conditions of 30 knot winds, British sailors identified the warship as Russia’s 104-metre-long...

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...

The banking industry likes superfluous language. There's "quantitative finance" for example, which (given that finance isalready a quantitative subject) is a bit like saying "aerial flight" or "wet swimming". And then there's "forward guidance". What, as opposed to backward guidance? I mean, what other type of guidance is there? Last summer the Bank of England (BoE) decided it wanted to import the U.S. Federal Reserve's forward guidance policy. In short this went along the lines of "we'll link future moves in the base rate to other external market indicators, so that as these other indicators move then so will base...

'A SIMPLE wreath-laying ceremony was staged to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the Battle of Bannockburn yesterday as the Scottish Government declared the event had helped inspire the nation’s “psyche”. A handful of visitors watched a ceremony at the spot Robert the Bruce is said to have planted his standard the night before he led his troops into battle. However, more than 15,000 people are expected to flock to the site, on the outskirts of Stirling, this weekend for a series of dramatic re-enactments and a “celebration” of Scottish culture and history. Ten children with roots from different parts of...

A third jihadist featured in a recruitment video released by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been identified as a prayer caller at a city mosque in Aberdeen. Abdul Rakib Amin settled in the northeast of Scotland with his family after travelling from Bangladesh. As a teenager he attended the Aberdeen Mosque and Islamic Centre, where he volunteered as a "mu'adhdhin", someone who calls worshippers to prayer. Sources at the mosque have told Sky News that Amin "never, ever" showed radical tendencies. They say that if he had he would have been immediately reported to the police,...

For months before the fall of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, Washington and London were getting detailed warnings about jihadist plans to exploit Sunni resentment toward Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and launch an ambitious takeover of northern and western Iraq. Kurdish military sources say the strategy of the ultra-radical Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) was telegraphed long in advance. The Kurds, who have their own autonomous region in northern Iraq and their own armed forces, monitored developing ties between the jihadists and tribal leaders as well as growing contacts with former Iraqi military officers. The Kurds became especially...

A gang of men attacked an American student while he was drinking in the street - grabbing a glass bottle from his hands and smashing it over his head, a court was told. Francesco Hounye, 23, from Florida, had been in Britain for just three days when he was set upon by the men while he was walking home with a friend in Shadwell, east London. Shaleem Uddin, 20, Shadhat Hussain, 19, Kamrul Hussain, 22, and Massom Rahman, 22, targeted Mr Hounye when they saw him swigging from a bottle of Jagermeister. (VIDEO) They then chased him, beat him, and...

Controversial columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown is accused of making a series of racist remarks against white people, even going as far as to say she wants them to be a "lost species". According to Rod Liddle, when asked in a TV interview what she thought of white people, she responded: "I don't like them. I want them to be a lost species in a hundred years."Writing for the Sun this weekend, Liddle said: "Can you imagine what would happen if you or I said that about black men, or women? The police would get involved, pronto."He was writing after taking part...

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...