Free Republic

French Justice Minister says France will support Islamic State jihadists if they’re sentenced to death in Iraq France’s Minister of Justice Nicole Belloubet “has announced that the government will intervene should French Islamic State members be sentenced to death in Iraq for their activities.” Islamic State jihadis are at war with the West and pose a grave danger to innocent people. Far too many leaders prioritize their rights over the rights and safety of citizens that they have a duty to protect. Yet Islamic State jihadists will in most cases continue their jihad in Western countries once they’re allowed back...

Two European Parliament lawmakers from Ireland on Sunday expressed support for boycotting Israel following its winning the Eurovision song contest, JTA reported. Lynn Boylan of Ireland’s far-left Sinn Féin party wrote on Twitter following Saturday’s win, “Israel wins Eurovision so let’s make BDS more successful than ever in 2019.” Nessa Childers, another Irish lawmaker for the Party of European Socialists, retweeted Boylan’s message, adding the word: “This!” She later wrote: “Jerusalem? The mind boggles. I thought Tel Aviv.” Órla Nic Biorna, a regional lawmaker for Sinn Féin, an Irish nationalist movement that was affiliated with the now-defunct Provisional Irish Republican...

The Saudi Arabian government plans to withdraw all Saudi students studying at Canadian universities, colleges and other schools in retaliation for Canada criticizing the country’s human-rights record. A Saudi government source, who wasn’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter, said there are more than 15,000 Saudis here on government-funded scholarships, grants or in trainee programs. Accompanying family members bring the number to 20,000 or more. The Saudi students will be moved immediately to study programs in other countries with similar education systems, such as Britain or the United States, the Saudi official said. Separately, Saudi Arabian Airlines, via the...

Saudi Arabia is ordering its citizens to leave Canada, selling its financial assets there and freezing trade between the two countries as part of an extraordinary diplomatic spat that has brought into global view the kingdom’s extreme sensitivity to Western criticism. The steps follow the Canada’s foreign ministry’s chastising Saudi Arabia for its recent arrest of human-rights activists. Canada’s foreign ministry, in a Twitter message sent on Friday, called on Saudi authorities to “immediately release” the activists. The Saudi government rejected what it described as Canada’s unacceptable interference in its domestic affairs, and on Monday expelled the Canadian ambassador to...

ANKARA - White House adviser Jared Kushner discussed his Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday, and the two also discussed increasing US-Turkish cooperation and ways to boost economic conditions in the region. Kushner, who has responsibility for Washington's Israel-Palestinian policy, has said the peace plan will address final-status issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, including establishing borders. Photo: AFP Kushner and Erdogan Photo: AFP facebook print send to friend comment Kushner meets Erdogan on Israel-Palestinian peace plan After saying the US had forfeited its role as mediator in the Middle East by moving its embassy to Jerusalem,...

By: Hassan. Mahmoudi After the nationwide uprising started in Iran in Dec.2017 the US – Iran relation entered into a new phase of escalation, and now perhaps more so than ever, US relations concerns about Iran dominate the American media and policy-making discussions. The United States has a set of policies to change Iran’s behavior In his first speech as secretary of state, Pompeo declared that Iran must withdraw all its forces from Syria, stop supporting its allies Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis in Yemen. It must halt production of long-range missiles, stop uranium enrichment allowed under the nuclear agreement,...

Germany’s Air Force chief “will likely be fired” if he “says ‘F-35’ again,” a local defense expert reports as debate about the Luftwaffe’s next-generation fighter jet grows in German military circles. The news comes amid reports that the German Air Force (the Luftwaffe) is mulling replacement options for its aging Panavia Tornado jets. The Tornado, designed and brought to service during the Cold War, fails to meet the requirements of modern warfare. Finding suitable options has, however, proved difficult. (Please see link for full article)

BERLIN: Germany will pick either the Eurofighter or Boeing's F/A-18 fighter jet to replace its Tornado warplanes, knocking Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth fighter out of a tender worth billions of euros, Defence Ministry sources said on Thursday (Jan 31). The ministry will make a final decision after receiving detailed information from Boeing and Airbus about the aircraft, which must be able to carry US nuclear weapons to fulfill Germany's obligations to NATO, the sources said. No timetable for a decision was given, but the process could take time since the US government will have to certify both jets to carry...

Tom Enders stared at the phone on his desk as it began to ring. The Airbus boss had been expecting a call to his office in Toulouse. It was Tim Clark, chief executive of Dubai-based airline Emirates, the biggest buyer of the planemaker’s A380 “superjumbo”. Clark was angry. He wanted to know why Airbus finance director Harald Wilhelm had just raised the prospect of the death of the A380. The aircraft cost $25 billion (£16 billion) to develop, but it has struggled to chalk up the large orders Airbus had envisioned, at $440 million each. So far, it has just...

For the last decade, the U.S. has pursued a case before the World Trade Organization (WTO) against illegal subsidies provided to Airbus by four European governments, which have given the European plane maker an unfair advantage in the global market. With government help, Airbus has captured 50% of the global commercial airplane market . The European Union has used delay and stall tactics to continue evading global trade rules by filing their own cases against the United States and ignoring WTO compliance rulings against their illegal practices. They’ve lost badly at every twist and turn, and now it’s time for...

A World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance panel ruled Thursday that the European Union has fallen dramatically short of remedying the harm to Boeing from illegal subsidies to Airbus. The decision opens a path for the U.S. to implement trade sanctions against the EU — potentially imposing billions of dollars in tariffs on its goods or services.

“I can’t get no respect,” moaned the late and overweight comedian Rodney Dangerfield. The Airbus A380, largest and heaviest airliner in operation today, could say that too after Air France reportedly will dump half of its A380 fleet—aircraft built and tested at the “hometown” Airbus factory in Toulouse. Like the quashing of a recent rumor that Lufthansa was on the verge of ordering another 15 A380s, this is another black eye for the world’s largest passenger plane. After all, if France and Germany, the countries that build the A380, don’t want it, who will?

The Trump administration will launch an effort to decriminalize homosexuality in countries where it is still illegal, as part of a diplomatic push for LGBTQ rights — and an effort to isolate Iran, which persecutes homosexuals. NBC News reported Tuesday that the effort is to be led by U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, a staunch Trump supporter who is among the highest-ranking openly gay officials ever to serve in the U.S. government. Grenell is currently among the front-runners to succeed Nikki Haley as UN Ambassador. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, the highest-profile openly gay person in the Trump...

Jew hater “Jihad” Jenny Tonge has posted the following on Facebook: It links to this article on Middle East Monitor. Let’s first start with the image. It shows Jewish Holocaust victims, not palestinians. What makes the inclusion of this fake image here even more duplicitous is the fact it is not the image Facebook automatically includes when you post this story: In other words, it looks like Tonge deliberately replaced the automatically chosen image with this fake one. But now to the story itself. Israeli Jewish journalist Asaf Shalev, who lives in California, has said that Israel had been hiding...

European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said today that Brexit is ‘the past’ and that he has ‘Brexit fatigue’. Speaking to the European Economic and Social Committee the morning after talks with Theresa May, Mr Juncker called Brexit a ‘disaster’, blaming the gridlock in the House of Commons. He said: “Brexit is deconstruction, it is not construction. Brexit is the past, it is not the future. “We are trying to deliver our best efforts in order to have this Brexit being organised in a proper, civilised, well-thought-out way. “But we are not there, because in the British Parliament there is, every...

Wow, This demonstrates how ingrained the Muslim beliefs are in people of that faith Dutch Orchestra walks Out on Muslim guest conductor. When the most liberal country in Europe pulls the plug on Islam, the world is beginning to see the light. Queen Beatrix of The Netherlands attended a concert in the capital, Amsterdam. The Guest Conductor, who just happens to be Muslim, proceeded to give the Queen a lecture on the "beauty" of Islam. The entire orchestra got up and walked out, refusing to be associated with someone lecturing their Queen. The staff of the music hall escorted the...

Even inside a hotel so secure that it has body scanners at the entrance and snipers on the roof, US Vice President Mike Pence travels with a vast security detail. Its main function, it seems, is to elbow people out of the way so that the vice president and his unsmiling wife can walk through a lobby, crowded with European officials and military brass, and speak to no one. Which is perhaps unsurprising, for Pence was heading to the main forum of the Munich Security Conference - an annual event whose origins lie deep in the Cold War - to...

Biden believes he can gain points with Europeans by publicly bashing – overseas, in Europe -- his fellow citizens who disagree with him, and indirectly the democratically (small d, not to be confused with the hate-America-first Democratic party) elected President they chose. Against his wishes. as he despises the President. And by extension, his own country. As do the Europeans... Biden gurgled on. Biden's country that now, under the administration he so opposes, boasts the lowest unemployment in years, including historically low unemployment for women, for blacks for even the unskilled. And the European leaders, whose countries on the whole...

Seven Labour lawmakers quit on Monday over leader Jeremy Corbyn’s approach to Brexit and a row over anti-Semitism, saying Britain’s main opposition party had been “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left”. In a direct challenge to Corbyn, the seven centrist MPs said they were courting others from across parliament to join their group, saying “enough is enough” in keeping silent over their doubts about the Labour leader’s fitness for office. United by a desire for a second referendum on Britain’s decision to leave the European Union, now that the likely terms of the divorce are known, they...

This may offer some insight into why the UK government is inviting in so many Muslims, and doing everything it can to appease and accommodate them, even to the extent of letting Muslim rape gangs run wild for years, with British authorities too afraid of being called “racist” and “Islamophobic” to do anything about: key members of the British political elite, including Prince Charles, don’t find the Islamic supremacist world view, particularly in its hatred of and paranoia toward Jews, all that different from its own.“Prince Charles blames ‘foreign Jews’ for Middle East turmoil in 1986 letter,” by Chantal Da...