Free Republic

Japan’s Soryu-class diesel-electric attack submarine. You don’t often think about France and Australia, unless you really know your history and know that a French explorer arrived in the Antipodes days after the First Fleet arrived from Britain and that much of the vast continent was surveyed by French sailors. But France and Australia may grow much closer, as Breaking D readers know, if they can sign a strategic partnership agreement to clear the path for work on a stealthy attack submarine known as the Shortfin Barracuda. That is beginning to look less likely, with French and Australian politicians and policymakers...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke out against President Donald Trump in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, blasting his anti-press rhetoric, the retreat from the world stage, and his insults of U.S. allies.

Women’s March leader Linda Sarsour on Friday launched a racial attack against Sen. Susan Collins, saying the Maine Republican was guilty of espousing “white supremacy” with her decision to support the Supreme Court nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh. Ms. Sarsour, a prominent Palestinian-American activist, blasted Ms. Collins on Twitter as a “white woman” and the “mother & grandmother of white women in America who gave us a Donald Trump presidency.”

Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moualem, told the United Nations General Assembly on Saturday that the country was ready for the voluntary return of refugees who fled during the more than seven-year conflict. ... We welcome any assistance with reconstruction from those countries that were not part of the aggression on Syria

THE HAGUE -- The United Nations' top court on Wednesday ordered the United States to lift sanctions on "humanitarian" goods to Iran that President Donald Trump re-imposed after pulling out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) unanimously ruled that Washington "shall remove by means of its choosing any impediments arising from the measures announced on May 8 to the free exportation to Iran of medicines and medical devices, food and agricultural commodities" as well as airplane parts, said judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf. The court said sanctions on goods "required for humanitarian needs... may have...

""Pompeo Terminates Iran Treaty After UN Court Hands Tehran A Victory In Sanctions Lawsuit Against Washington"" Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced Wednesday the U.S. will terminate a 63-year-old treaty with Iran, hours after a top United Nations court ruled in favor of Tehran in a lawsuit challenging U.S. sanctions. Pompeo said the abrogation of the 1955 Treaty of Amity was “39 years overdue,” referring to the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran that resulted in the overthrow of the U.S.-friendly shah. Until Pompeo’s announcement, the Treaty of Amity had remained in force even though Washington and Tehran have not had...

Iran's Regime Faces international pressure and Domestic tension. By: Hassan. Mahmoudi In The 73rd session of the UN General Assembly Trump, said the oil-related sanctions will be followed by other punitive measures to thwart what he characterized as a “corrupt dictatorship” that still harbors nuclear weapons ambitions and foments turmoil in the Middle East through its support of militant groups. “We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues,” he said. he added, “we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.” Meanwhile, Iranian regime claim...

TOKYO (AP) — A German-French observation device safely landed on an asteroid on Wednesday after a Japanese spacecraft released it as part of a research effort that could find clues about the origin of the solar system, Japanese space officials said. The Japan Space Exploration Agency said the Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, was released from the unmanned spacecraft Hayabusa2 and successfully landed on the asteroid Ryugu. The spacecraft went as close as about 50 meters (160 feet) to the asteroid’s surface to release the box-shaped lander.

This is the reality: A career diplomat crossing European borders in a rented car while carrying a professionally-made bomb, which bears a design favored by jihadists. In Luxembourg, he hands over the bomb to two would-be terrorists, long-standing residents of Europe who just look like any ordinary young married couple. They accept it with a clear mission in mind: to bomb a political rally in the largest convention center in France, located in the suburbs of Paris. If the plot is successful, it will kill many among the tens of thousands of people in attendance, among who were hundreds of...

The Polish filmmaker, still a fugitive due to a statutory rape case, will direct Oscar-winner Jean Dujardin in the film based on the Dreyfus Affair. Roman Polanski, who has spent four decades as the accused, will explore one of the most famous miscarriages of justice in his new film, J'Accuse. French producers Legende Films confirmed that Polanski, who fled the U.S. after admitting to the statutory rape of a 13-year-old girl in 1977, will begin shooting on the film in Paris later this year.2018 by Scott Roxborough

When the stone slabs crashed into her butcher’s shop window last week, Elisabeth Cure became the latest victim of “radical vegans” who are trying to force a change in eating habits in traditionally meat-loving France. The attack in a quiet town of Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines, 50 kilometers (30 miles) southwest of Paris, took place at 3:00 am, startling Cure as she slept above the store. As in other similar incidents around France over the last year, her tormentors left a tell-tale tag scrawled on the shopfront: “End the Repression”. “That’s how I knew it was radical vegans,” she told AFP. Incidents of...

France’s leaders proposed a new alliance of “goodwill powers” on Friday in an attempt to revive the type of global diplomacy that they say is being jeopardized by the United States, Russia and other countries that favor unilateralism over cooperation. French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced the plan during a speech at Harvard University, suggesting that Europe should align itself with countries like India, Australia, Mexico and other “powerful democracies” that share a commitment to multilateralism. His speech described an erosion of the brand of diplomacy that brought nations together following World War II and led to the...

The French government has ordered Marine Le Pen, leader of the right wing National Front Party to undergo a psychiatric examination "to determine whether she must be confined to a mental institution for her own well-being." The proximate inspiration for this coercive order is Le Pen's opposition to the continued importation of Islamic fanatics into France. "This drastic move was made necessary by the earlier failure of massive fines imposed after Le Pen posted photos of ISIS terrorists massacring unbelievers on the Internet," Macron explained. "In France we respect the rights of individuals to freely practice their religion. The tenets...

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York this week, France’s president made comments widely interpreted as targeting the United States over its withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord.

Nations that struck the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, except for the United States, meet on Monday in what many diplomats fear may prove a quixotic effort to keep the agreement alive after U.S. sanctions targeting Iranian oil exports resume in November. Ministers from Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran will gather in New York at 8 p.m. EDT on Monday (0000 GMT Tuesday) to grapple with U.S. President Donald Trump’s May 8 decision to withdraw from the deal and restore the full force of U.S. sanctions on Iran. Their delicate, and perhaps unrealistic, task is to build a case...

With rising unilateralism challenging its very existence, the United Nations convenes its annual meeting of world leaders Monday and will try once more to tackle problems together as a community of nations, addressing threats ranging from Mideast conflicts to the effects of global warming — and also encouraging the glimmer of hope over the nuclear standoff in North Korea. This year, 133 world leaders have signed up to attend the General Assembly session, a significant increase from last year’s 114. Secretary-General António Guterres called the expected large turnout “eloquent proof of the confidence of the international community in the United...

This month, the doors will open at the Institute of Social, Economic and Political Sciences (ISSEP) in Lyon, France’s third-biggest city. It will, its high-profile backers hope, become a breeding ground for the country’s next generation of conservative thinkers and leaders. It also marks the return to public life of Marion Maréchal, once the great hope of the French far right, who is the college’s director. She said the idea was to train a new crop of politicians and officials to replace the “visionless” Parisian elite. She was the youngest member of France’s parliament before stepping away from politics in...

French far-right leader Marine Le Pen expressed outrage after being ordered to undergo psychiatric tests for tweeting pictures of atrocities committed by the Islamic State group. Le Pen shared the images... after IS jihadists killed 130 people in attacks in Paris, ... The leader of the National Rally ... was stripped of her parliamentary immunity over the pictures and charged with circulating violent messages.... a court order requiring her to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. it calls for the tests to be carried out "as soon as possible" to establish whether Le Pen "is capable of understanding remarks and answering questions"....

President Trump spoke at a campaign rally for the midterm elections in Las Vegas last night, urging everyone there to vote in November saying: "America is winning again, because we are putting America first again". Trump urged votes for Republicans saying: "We need to have more Republicans in office."...... There was a restitution hearing in Las Vegas yesterday in connection with the Bunkerville Standoff case for Todd Engel, convicted in May 2017 and sentenced to 14 years in prison. Engel came to the defense of the Bundy Ranch in Nevada in April 2014..... The latest from the lawyer for the...

Marine Le Pen, the leader of the French far right has been left shocked and furious after a court ordered her to be examined by a psychiatrist to determine if she “is capable of understanding remarks and answering questions”. Le Pen, who is head of the former National Front party – now National Rally (Rassemblement National) revealed on Twitter her shock and anger at being ordered to undertake a psychiatric assessment. The unusual summoning is in relation to Le Pen having tweeted out gruesome propaganda images from terror group Isis that showed the bodies of people having been executed by...