Free Republic

A new Norwegian TV series in which Russia occupies the Nordic country and takes control of its oil fields has been described by Russia's Foreign Ministry as being "in the worst traditions of the Cold War" and representing a "non-existent threat from the east." The series is to be launched by the largest Norwegian independent television channel TV2, the local media outlet LO News reports. Events in the TV show evolve around the invasion of Norway by the Russian army – backed by the European Union – after environmental radicals come to power in the Scandinavian country and stop its...

"When [Abdul] heard the amount, he just broke down and started crying," Simonarson said. "He was so thankful and he kept saying, 'thank you for all your generosity,'" Gissur Simonarson, the man who took the photo, said.Heartbroken readers around the world have made a definitive statement after seeing a viral photo circulated on the Internet this week -- showing a Syrian father selling pens in the streets of Beirut while cradling his sleeping daughter. And that statement so far has nearly six digits in it. A Norwegian activist named Gissur Simonarson came face-to-face with the refugee on Tuesday. With...

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden warned Norway that he faced a possible death sentence if returned to the United States in the extradition request he made in 2012. Snowden may get freedom prize at border (28 Aug 15) US asked Norway to arrest Edward Snowden (27 Aug 15) “I believe that…it is unlikely that I would receive a fair trial or proper treatment prior to the trial, and face the possibility of life imprisonment, and even death,” he wrote in the extradition letter, a copy of which has been obtained by Norway's NRK channel. The letter was sent by fax to...

Israeli-Norwegian relations have hardly been a flash point in the troubled history of the Middle East. But a programming decision last week by a film festival in Oslo to reject a film simply for its Israeli-ness may have opened a new chapter in the boycott movement against Israel.

Two Norwegian teenage girls missing for four days in the Mediterranean province of Antalya have been found in neighboring Mersin province - with their hair dyed black. Mia Emilie Haugen, 15, arrived in Turkey to visit her mother who lives in Antalya’s Alanya district. Mia and her friend Ida Marie Norland, 15, who was also vacationing in Alanya, went missing after arranging to meet on Aug. 8. Four days after the girls went missing, police received a call around 5 a.m. from a coffee shop employee who thought the behavior of two teenage customers was suspicious. Policemen arrived at the...

A Norwegian further education college is starting a programme for want-to-be Vikings where students will learn essential Viking crafts, such as sword forging, jewellery making, and roof thatching. During the course at Seljord Folkehøgskule 150km west of Oslo, students -- many inspired by TV series such as ‘Game of Thrones’ -- will celebrate even celebrate the Norse rituals of the year, going so far as to make animal sacrifices during the winter feast. “We see a large number of applicants who have applied for different reasons," the school's principal, Arve Husby, told Norwegian broadcaster NRK. "Some have become interested through...

The groundskeeper of a Norwegian golf course said a mystery pooper targeting course holes must be a man "because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." Kenneth Tennfjord, groundskeeper at the Stavanger Golf Club, said he has been finding human feces and toilet paper in course holes since 2005. "He has a couple of favorite holes," Tennfjord told the Rogaland Avis newspaper. "And we know it is a man because the poos are too massive to be from a woman." "He poos only on weekdays. On weekends I have never found poo on the golf course," Tennfjord...

BAGHDAD (AP) — The body of an Iraqi pilot whose military plane crashed during a training mission in the United States has been found at the crash site, Iraq’s Defense Ministry said on Friday, as violence continues to strike around the capital, Baghdad.

An Iraqi pilot who has been training in the United States for four years was flying an F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft that crashed in southern Arizona, a spokesman for the Iraqi defense minister said Thursday. "We have no word yet on his fate or the reason behind the crash," Brig. Gen. Tahseen Ibrahim told The Associated Press. "We are in contact with the Americans to get more details." Ibrahim confirmed the pilot is Brig. Gen. Rafid Mohammed Hassan. The fighter crashed about 8 p.m. Wednesday in grassland some five miles away from the Douglas airport during a night training mission,...

A mock invasion of Sweden and Norway has been carried out by 33,000 Russian troops, a US security think tank has claimed. Tens of thousands of soldiers rehearsed a military takeover of Swedish and Norwegian territory near the Baltic Sea in March, security expert Edward Lucas said in a report for the US-based Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). The exercise also simulated the invasion of other areas including the Danish island of Bornholm, Finland's Swedish-speaking Åland islands, and northern Norway, according to the report, The Coming Storm.

Norwegian Eurovision star Tooji has come out in scandalous style, releasing a video shot inside an Oslo church in which he has steamy sex with a male priest in front of both altar and shocked congregation. The Bishop of Oslo, Ole Christian Kvarme, on Monday condemned the video as “totally unacceptable” and “a gross misuse of the church”, accusing the video’s producers of misinforming the church about the video’s contents. “My new video Father is Out, and so am I!” Tooji Keshtar, 28, said as he released the video on YouTube on Monday. In the song and video, called the...

Several refugees sent to Norway under the UN’s quota system turned out to have close links to the terror groups Islamic State (IS) and the al-Nusra Front, Norway’s Police Security Service (PST) has revealed. According to the service, between five and ten of the 1,000 Syrians chosen to go to Norway by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), were discovered to have links to the one of the two terror groups. “Unfortunately, there are some who try to exploit and abuse the refugee agency,” Police Superintendent Svein Erik Molstad told Norway’s Dagbladet newspaper. “We have discovered more quota...

John Forbes Nash Jr. was a mathematical genius who had his life chronicled in the movie A Beautiful Mind. One of Nash’s colleagues says that just days before he died in a New York taxi cab accident, he had discussed his latest and possibly most brilliant discovery to date. Mathematician Cédric Villan says that Nash told him that he had replaced Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and that the new equation would further explain quantum gravity. The Daily Mail reports that on May 20, 2015, just three days before the tax cab accident that would take his life, Nash spoke to...

Noting that he’s “perhaps the most progressive member of the United States Senate,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) described today how, as president, he would do socialism in America. “When we talk about Democratic socialism, I think it is important to realize that there are countries around the world, like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, who have had social democratic governments on and off for many, many years. And we can learn a whole lot from some of those countries,” the 2016 Democratic presidential contender said on CBS this morning. “For example, the United States is the only major country on earth...

Norway is one of the most politically correct countries on earth, so this, via Eugene Volokh, caught me by surprise: The Local [Norway] reports: Norway has scrapped its longstanding blasphemy law, meaning it is now legal to mock the beliefs of others, in a direct response to January’s brutal attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. The proposal to rush through the change [originally voted on in 2009, but delayed for technical reasons since then,] was made in February by Conservative MP Anders B. Werp and Progress Party MP Jan Arild Ellingsen, who argued that the law “underpins a...

Changes in the Arctic Ocean are so profound that the region is entering what amounts to "a new era", according to Norwegian scientists. A switch from a permanent cover of thick ice will have far-reaching implications, they say. The Norwegian Polar Institute has been mounting an expedition to the Arctic Ocean during the year's coldest months. The director of the institute, Jan-Gunnar Wanker, said that measuring what happens in the winter was vital to improving scenarios for future climate change. "A new era has entered, we are going from old ice to young ice, thinner ice and the climate models...

Norway’s finance minister, who is also leader of the right wing Progress Party, stated in a press interview that she is skeptical that humans are causing climate change. According to ABC News; Norway’s finance minister says she doubts that global warming is man-made, seemingly contradicting the country’s official position in U.N. climate talks. In an on-camera interview posted on the Aftenposten newspaper’s website on Tuesday, Siv Jensen answered “no” to a question about whether she was convinced that climate change was caused by humans. Asked to clarify whether she was in doubt about man-made warming, she said “yes.” Jensen, who...

First it was Net Neutrality; will the demise of FM radio come next ? Norway will be switching off FM radio as of 2017 as part of its transition to digital airwaves, DAB. Norway will save $25 million without the FM spectrum making it possible to add 20 or more "national" stations to its digital offerings. Other Scandinavian countries as well as the UK are planning to abandon FM by 2022. For the consumer it means having to buy a new DAB radio which will no doubt soon be given free by Dear Leader along with your phone, toaster and...

Video may have killed the radio star, but in Norway it's digital that's killing FM radio for good. In two years' time, the Scandinavian nation is slated to become the first in the world to phase out radio entirely.

2017 will see the end of FM Radio in Norway, as the European country has set a date for the switch-off of their FM radio stations. The Norwegian parliament set the stage for the end of the broadcast spectrum’s use in 2011 with the digitization mandate issued by the Storting. The shut down of the FM bands will be implemented region by region. The Ministry of Culture in Norway made the decision public on Thursday, bringing the end of FM radio broadcasting in the country.