Free Republic

In Magyar Idők, Zoltán Kottász contends that the 2019 European Parliament election campaign will be the first EP election in which real European issues will dominate. While in the past, EP elections in all member states were determined by domestic issues, in 2019, EU voters will decide about the future and identity of Europe, the pro-government commentator suspects. Kottász predicts that the campaign will be fought between what he calls ‘globalist multculturalist parties’ led by French President Macron, and ‘forces which champion national sovereignty’ that oppose migration. Kottász thinks that PM Orbán’s anti-multiculturalist and anti-immigration vision are becoming increasingly popular...

The first Polish private claim against the German government for compensation over medical experiments at the Auschwitz death camp was to be lodged on Friday with a district court in Warsaw, according to a report. The claim "will be submitted by the family of a prisoner" who was held at the Nazi German-run camp, lawyer Stefan Hambura, who represents Polish citizens in disputes with German institutions, told reporters. Public broadcaster Polish Radio cited Hambura as saying he hoped there would be more such suits. More than 1.1 million people perished at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp during World War II, mostly...

THE QUEST FOR JERUSALEM 1070-1312 by Prof. Carl Edwin Lindgren, D.Ed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The First Crusade – 1099 From the late eleventh century (1096) until 1291 a continuing influx of pilgrims, armies, peasants and religious orders from Europe entered the Holy Land. Originally, their intent was recapturing Jerusalem from the Mohammedans. Later, armed intervention preserved those territories from further Moslem occupation (Bradford 1973). This northern and western insurgence into the Near East consisted of seven crusades (marked with the Cross) or religious campaigns.[1] Religious conviction drove many to take the Cross (a pledge to join the military campaign). More mundane principles...

France does not want to finance a populist Europe, the country’s foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has indicated, just as the fight over the EU’s new long-term budget begins in earnest. These strong words were said in Paris on Wednesday during the annual conference of French ambassadors, a meeting at which the French head of diplomacy officially indicates the most important directions of the country’s foreign policy. 71-year-old Le Drian, who after the victory of French President Emmanuel Macron took the helm of French diplomacy, said that France and Germany intend to work out a common position on migration before...

It has long been charged that Antifa operatives enter the crowds of pro-freedom rallies and say and do things in order to discredit those rallies. In the protests in Chemnitz against mass Muslim migration, this man made a Hitler salute, which was picked up by the international media as proof that the rallies were full of neo-Nazis. But this man has now been unmasked as a supporter of the Red Army Faction, a Communist terrorist group. Even the German media is admitting it. But it is unlikely there will follow any retractions from the media outside the country, which is...

SOFIA (Reuters) — French President Emmanuel Macron ruled out on Thursday any trade war with the United States over its withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal as a wave of European companies quit business with Tehran, fearing the global reach of U.S. sanctions. European Union leaders united behind the 2015 accord, and Brussels announced it would launch a legal process banning EU-based firms from complying with the sanctions that U.S. President Donald Trump has reimposed on Iran. However, corporations face the choice of trading with the biggest economy in the world, the United States, or with Iran, risking sanctions and...

WASHINGTON — America's allies in Europe are plotting ways to bypass President Donald Trump's sanctions on Iran as they work to keep the nuclear deal alive without the United States. With a second round of U.S. sanctions set to take effect in November, European officials are working at cross-purposes with Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign as they try to preserve as much business as possible with Iran. The goal is to persuade Iran's leaders to stay in the deal for a few more years — perhaps long enough for Trump to be replaced and for a new U.S. president to rejoin...

German foreign minister Heiko Maas of the German Social Democratic Party believes that Europe must unite to form a "counterweight" to the United States when it "crosses the line" in its dealings with Germany. Maas believes that Germany and France should forge a stronger bond in order to diminish American freedom of action – whether it be in imposing sanctions on Iran (which would harm European business interests) or in forcibly renegotiating longstanding (bad) deals with Europe (specifically, Germany) on trade and mutual defense. But the idea that Germany, France, or any other European country could strengthen the fraying unity...

Earlier, the former US Secretary of State said that President Trump’s decision in May to leave the 2015 Iran nuclear deal “weakens our security, breaks America’s word [and] isolates us from our European allies.” In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation”, former US Secretary of State John Kerry berated President Donald Trump for having described the Iran nuclear accord, or the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) as the “worst deal ever.” “Unfortunately — and I say this sadly — more often than not, he really just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He makes things up. And he’s...

A MIGRANT facing hundreds of criminal investigations cannot be deported from Germany – because officials have no idea where he is from. The man, who came to Germany in 1998 without a passport, claims to be from various North African countries including Algeria and Morocco. He has allegedly been using legal loopholes to stay in Germany despite having a staggering 542 criminal investigations against him. The migrant has been accused of a string of crimes including assault, theft, robbery and buying drugs, local media said. He was recently arrested by police but authorities have clue what the man's name is...

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has recorded an increase of closed murder cases in 2017 involving at least one “non-German” suspect, reported Welt Am Sonntag on Sunday. The number rose to 83 last year, up from 62 the year before, marking a 33 percent increase. In total, 731 people died as a result of murder or manslaughter in 2017. The figures solely comprise closed cases. The BKA’s 2017 report did not specify nationality or whether a suspect was an EU citizen. […] A debate about the link between foreign nationals and murder in Germany was triggered by riots in...

VIENNA - Iran has remained within the main restrictions on its nuclear activities imposed by a 2015 deal with major powers, a confidential report by the U.N. atomic watchdog indicated on Thursday. In its last report in May, the IAEA had said Iran could do more to cooperate with inspectors and thereby “enhance confidence”, but stopped short of saying the Islamic Republic had given it cause for concern. Thursday’s report to member states seen by Reuters contained similar language. It said the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog was able to carry out all so-called complementary access inspections needed to verify Iran’s...

Thousands have marched through a German city after racist violence flared up following the arrest of an Iraqi and a Syrian over a fatal stabbing. Marchers demonstrated both for and against migrants in the eastern city of Chemnitz. Sunday and Monday evenings saw outbreaks of violence triggered by the arrest of two suspects allegedly involved in the stabbing of Daniel Hillig, a 35-year-old German-Cuban. Following the arrests, mobs attacked people they took to be foreigners, including an Afghan, a Syrian and a Bulgarian man.

EU Trade Commissioner Gives Ground: We’re Willing To Drop Auto Tariffs To Zero (If The US Will Do The Same)(Full Title) President Trump’s hard line on tariffs has won a significant concession from the European Union, at least the promise of one. Trump has been warning all summer that he could add a tariff on automobile imports which would have a significant impact on automakers in Europe (as well as Japan and Mexico). Today the European Union Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom said the EU was willing to drop all of its existing tariffs on cars and other goods to zero...

Michael Kretschmer, prime minister of the German state of Saxony, knew he was entering the lion’s den. But even he looked unprepared for the boos, whistles and catcalls that greeted him in Chemnitz, a city boiling over with rage and hurt.  Addressing a town-hall meeting of locals reeling from the murder of a 35-year-old man in the city last weekend, Mr Kretschmer insisted they should have distanced themselves from the rightwing extremists who hijacked their peaceful protest over the killing, which authorities suspect was carried out by a Syrian and an Iraqi. “It’s not a good thing to be in a...

A German man who used a homemade bomb to attack a mosque in the eastern city of Dresden was Friday sentenced to nearly 10 years in jail for what prosecutors called a xenophobic crime. The accused, Nino Köhler, had apologized during his trial to the imam and his family. No one was hurt in the attack. The bomb damaged the door of the Fatih mosque while the family were inside on September 26th, 2016. That same evening, the accused planted another homemade pipe bomb that slightly damaged a convention center in the city, which was days away from hosting festivities...

CHEMNITZ, Germany — Waving German flags, with some flashing Nazi salutes, the angry mob made its way through the streets, chasing after dark-skinned bystanders as police officers, vastly outnumbered, were too afraid to intervene. A Syrian refugee and father of two, Anas al-Nahlawie, watched horrified from a friend’s fourth-floor balcony. They were hunting in packs for immigrants just like him, he said. “Like wolves.” For a few perilous hours over two days this week, the mob owned the streets of Chemnitz, where anger exploded after word spread that an Iraqi and a Syrian asylum seeker were suspected in a knife...

This month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan intimated that his country might consider leaving NATO. Meanwhile, on a visit to Moscow last week, Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu referred to Russia as a “strategic partner”—a first. This talk is empty. Erdogan may well be angry at Washington, but ultimately, Ankara is going to have to do whatever it takes to restore its ties with the West. Doing so might not be enough to pull the country out of its economic crisis, but Erdogan has few other options if he wants to avoid a potentially worse political meltdown: He depends too...

The Trump administration has decided to cancel all U.S. funding of the United Nations aid program for Palestinian refugees, part of its determination to put its money where its policy is as it seeks a recalculation of U.S. foreign aid spending and prepares its own Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. In an announcement to be made within the next several weeks, the administration plans to voice its disapproval of the way the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, spends the funds and to call for a sharp reduction in the number of Palestinians recognized as refugees, dropping it from more than...

Berlin fears a meltdown of the Turkish economy could spill over into Europe, cause further unrest in the Middle East and trigger a new wave of immigration toward the north. “We would do a lot to try to stabilize Turkey,” a senior German official said. “We don’t have much choice.” Other European governments have grown equally concerned. Hosting his Turkish counterpart in Paris on Monday, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said it was important to support Turkey’s efforts to repair its economy.