Free Republic

A giraffe at Norway’s Kristiansand zoo was gored to death on Monday by an eland antelope as horrified adults and children looked on. ”It was very traumatic. People were crying everywhere,” Øivind Hansen, who witnessed the killing, told VG. His daughter Sissel Finstad, 23, had come home crying from the zoo. ”It was a horrible experience for everyone who saw it. It has really affected people,” he said. Per Arnstein Aamodt, the zoo's chief executive, confirmed that the giraffe, which had been stuck in a fence, had been killed by the antelope.

PARIS -- We're witnessing arguably the most unfocused and undisciplined U.S. foreign policy in history under President Barack Obama. If I'm seeing it and you're seeing it, then it's a safe bet that America's opponents are seeing it -- and attempting to exploit it for long-term gain. What might that exploitation look like? Take a dog to a park and toss some sticks around, one after another and in different directions. Watch Fido zigzag around, bark at all the sticks in frustration, fail to retrieve one in favor of running after another. Agence France Presse reported concerns last week over...

What ARE the Russians up to? NATO fears grow over why 'research vessels' sent by Moscow have taken over mothballed secret Arctic base in mountain hideaway Concerns are growing over Russian ships that have docked in a once-secret naval base in the Arctic. Military leaders in Norway are nervous about its powerful neighbour's presence on its 'strategically important' coastline following a spike in tensions between Russia and NATO nations. Some experts have criticised the shutting down of Olavsvern Naval Base - a huge complex buried in mountainous terrain near the town of Tromsoe - which has been closed since 2009....

Russian ships docked at what was once a secret Norwegian naval base in the Arctic have prompted concern from the NATO country's former top military leaders, anxious about its resurgent eastern neighbour roaming nearby. Norway's jagged Arctic coastline has regained its strategic importance since tensions between Russia and NATO members have spiked to levels not seen since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Shackleton Energy Company (SEC) and Zaptec sign a Memorandum of Understanding to explore how technologies developed by Zaptec for the oil and gas industry can be utilised in lunar mining. SEC is focusing on building a supply chain for extraction of water ice and minerals from the surface of the Moon, to convert the resources into fuel. Shackleton Energy believes that the electronic transformer technology developed by Zaptec for the oil and gas industry can be applied to SEC’s lunar mining plans as it reduces size and mass of equipment, which is a primary goal of SECs strategy. The cost...

Explanation: During a total solar eclipse, the Sun's extensive outer atmosphere, or corona, is an inspirational sight. Streamers and shimmering features that engage the eye span a brightness range of over 10,000 to 1, making them notoriously difficult to capture in a single photograph. But this composite of 29 telescopic images covers a wide range of exposure times to reveal the crown of the Sun in all its glory. The aligned and stacked digital frames were recorded in the cold, clear skies above the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, Norway during the Sun's total eclipse on March 20 and also show...

Explanation: Near the March 20 equinox the cold clear sky over Longyearbyen, Norway, planet Earth held an engaging sight, a total eclipse of the Sun. The New Moon's silhouette at stages just before and after the three minute long total phase seems to sprout glistening diamonds and bright beads in this time lapse composite of the geocentric celestial event. The last and first glimpses of the solar disk with the lunar limb surrounded by the glow of the Sun's inner corona give the impression of a diamond ring in the sky. At the boundaries of totality, sunlight streaming through valleys...

Around 7 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 13, about two dozen high-level U.S. diplomats, politicians and four-star generals held a discussion in a briefing room on the sixth floor of the luxury Bayerischer Hof hotel in Munich. Their frank comments behind a sound-proof door were leaked, perhaps to German intelligence but certainly to the German newspapers Bild and Der Spiegel, which published reports of the discussions. They reveal a ham-handed U.S. diplomacy in Europe that has raised consternation and revulsion against the administration of President Barack Obama and by extension against NATO. Although not directly involved, Canadians can learn from the...

More than 45,000 Russian troops as well as war planes and submarines started military exercises across much of the country on Monday in one of the Kremlin's biggest shows of force since its ties with the West plunged to Cold War-lows. President Vladimir Putin called the Navy's Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia's Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighboring Norway, a NATO member.

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Only the Islamic State (ISIS) can “fulfill our ambitions and dreams,” said firebrand Kurdish cleric Mulla Krekar, who was recently freed from a Norwegian jail. “The Islamic State is not something strange; it is the only element that can fulfill our ambitions and dreams,” he said in an Al Jazeera interview. The 58-year-old preacher added that all Muslims calling for resistance to the extremist Sunni ISIS “Caliphate” are “cowards,” and accused them of following orders from the United States and Shiite Iran. He called upon ISIS to appoint someone “with the courage to fight the infidels...

600-Year-Old American Indian Historical Account Has Old Norse WordsBy Larry Stroud, Guard Associate EditorPublished on Thursday March 15, 2007 Vikings and Algonquins. The first American multi-culturalists? BIG BAY, Mich. — Two experts on ancient America may have solved not only the mysterious disappearance of Norse from the Western Settlement of Greenland in the 1300s, but also are deciphering Delaware (Lenape) Indian history, which they’re finding is written in the Old Norse language. The history tells how some of the Delaware’s ancestors migrated west to America across a frozen sea and intermarried with the Delaware and other Algonquin Indians. Myron Paine,...

Dozens of soldiers from a battalion famous for using the emblem of a vicious comic book avenger to strike fear into the enemy in Afghanistan are heading to Iraq with ISIS in their sights. The Telemark Battalion is an elite mechanised infantry unit of the Norwegian Army which has been involved in the fight against the Taliban as part of the NATO-led security mission since 2003. Around 50 soldiers from Telemark will be heading to the city of Irbil in northern Iraq to train Kurdish forces to help them in their fight against Islamic State, the Norwegian ministry of defence...

Norway recently made the controversial decision to deport a large amount of Muslims with ties to radical groups.

Back in 2009, just months after his swearing in, president Barack Obama was crowned with an unexpected glory: he won the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 due to "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples." Back then there was little indication that just a few years after his crowning achievement of "ending the war" in and returning US troops from Iraq, he would send US troops right back in Iraq for the 3rd US invasion of the country in three decades, but also send out US troops across the globe, and launch the second cold war,...

Norway recently made the controversial decision to deport a large amount of Muslims with ties to radical groups. Despite all the liberals in Norway deeming this “racist”, the logical party went ahead with it and the result almost shut down every opposing voice in the government instantly. This is one of the best stories we have eve seen come from such a liberal area of the world. Violent Crime Dropped By 30%

In August 2014 a hobby archaeologist found a Viking Age sword with metal detector in a field in Skaun, just south of Trondheim in Central Norway. Now, archaeologists have examined the finding and have some exciting news about the owner. Having examined the grave, archaeologists at the NTNU Museum of Natural History and Archaeology in Trondheim tell NRK that it is dated to about the year 950. In addition to the sword, researchers found the remains of a shield. 'We have not managed to find out who owned the sword, but we know that he was a well traveled man",...

London (CNN)—Western relations with Russia will never again be the same after the war in Ukraine, Norwegian Defense Minister Ine Eriksen Søreide told CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Wednesday. "We are faced with a different Russia. I want to warn against the fact that some people see this as something that is going to pass. The situation has changed. And it has changed profoundly." There is "no going back to some sort of normality or some sort of back to normal business. Because that normality does not exist."

The European Union’s executive has unveiled a vast plan to boost coordination between the EU’s 28 national energy markets to wean Europe off unstable Russian gas supplies and provide cheaper energy for consumers. European Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič on Wednesday called it “undoubtedly the most ambitious energy project” since the inception of the EU over half a century ago. He believes that improving links across borders in Europe’s energy grid could save businesses and consumers up to €40 billion ($45.4 billion) a year. A more energy-independent Europe will also increase the EU’s political options in eastern Europe. […] “Our...

THE Eternal Love of The Father Virtue upon virtue , line upon line of My Word is truly a River of Life as you walk in My Love and not your own for as your Father in Heaven I AM with you always even onto forever but it is My desire you carry My Heart and not your own for your love can be injured But My Love for you ,in you and through you is an unstoppable Truth that sheds off the lies of the enemy and before which all condemnation Must Fall! For My Love is Sovereign and...

See what happens when you kick the leftists out of government and replace them with a real conservative. Erna Solberg, leader of Norway’s Conservative Party, took office as new prime minister in October, and introduced a new cabinet that ‘represents the entire country.’ The Local (h/t Marina) Conservative Party leader Erna Solberg – nicknamed “Iron Erna” – as Norway’s new prime minister is the leader of a centre-right coalition government that includes an an anti-immigration party.