Free Republic

Belgium, Denmark, Germany and Luxembourg are the only EU countries where citizens approve the European Union’s leadership with a clear 50% majority, according to a recent poll by Gallup. Approval ratings in nearly all other member states have dropped dramatically since 2008, especially in the crisis-hit south. The approval of the EU leadership is lowest in Greece (19%), Cyprus (21%) and Spain (27%), according to Gallup poll released on Wednesday (8 January). Other countries with critically low approval ratings include the United Kingdom (29%), Sweden (30%) or the Czech Republic (30%). The EU is still backed by a majority of...

One German Town's Fight against CO2 Capture Technology By Jessica Donath in Beeskow, Germany The next Chernobyl? A death blow to tourism? Poisoned drinking water? The residents of Beeskow, Germany worry that a planned CO2 storage facility under their town could end in disaster and are fighting the project. Europe, though, hopes the technology will drastically reduce emissions. The signs are everywhere -- on church towers, on fences surrounding private homes and in storefronts. At first glance, the scenes evoke the large-scale protests against nuclear power that rattled Germany in the 1970s and 1980s. The resemblance is no accident. Residents...

The Nordic Council has received recommendations from the expert panel to forbid antifeminist speech in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Norway). The “Expert panel” was full of radical feminists and profeminist men. In the report antifeminist speech and right-wing extremist hate speech towards immigrants are treated as a part of the same movement. Antifeminist Threats and Harassment must be made Illegal (We recommend that the Nordic governments ensure that threats and harassment on the basis of gender are made illegal. Hate speech online must be prosecuted similarly to hate speech in other public spheres.) Low threshold services...

Swedish police have opened a hate-crime investigation after swastikas were spray-painted on the entrance of a mosque in downtown Stockholm. Omar Mustafa, the head of Sweden’s Islamic federation, says employees discovered the vandalism as they arrived to open the mosque Thursday morning. He posted pictures of the graffiti on Twitter. …

Luke 17:31-33 The Voice Since people are easily distracted, Jesus says that they shouldn’t get so caught up in the routines of daily life that they forget to remain faithful to Him. 31 When that day comes, if you’re on the housetop, don’t run inside to try to save any of your belongings. If you’re in the field, don’t bother running back to the house. 32 Remember Lot’s wife. Turning back is fatal for those who do so. 33 If you try to hold on to your life, it will slip through your fingers; if you let go of your...

American progressives like to think of their country as backward and reactionary compared to Europe. And they have never been more right than now when Europe and the rest of the First World have gone right while America under Obama has been left back. Recently Australia, Japan and Norway welcomed in conservative governments. Tony Abbott, Australia’s new prime minister, is a former heavyweight boxer who attended Oxford and is putting a spoke in the wheel of the Global Warming ecohoax. Japan is casting off its pacifism and standing up to the People’s Republic of China and Norway gave its left-wing...

Residues of pottery sherds from ancient Scandinavian settlements dating as far back as 1200 B.C. are the inspiration for Delaware-based brewey Dogfish Head's latest ancient ale, Kvasir. Patrick McGovern, a bioarchaeolgist at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and frequent collaborator with Dogfish Head on these brews calls the drink a Nordic grog. The recipe for Kvasir, which is available in limited quantities now, involves yarrow, lingonberries, cranberries, bog myrtle, and birch syrup. Prior to Kvasir, Dogfish Head brewed Midas Touch, influenced by residues taken from 2,700-year-old pottery found in Turkey, and Chateau Jiahu, an ale that traces its history back...

Sweden will loan Brazil several Gripen NG fighter jets, the kind the South American country recently purchased from Swedish firm Saab, in time for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, a media report said. The jets will be loaned to Brazil by the Swedish Air Force, since the 36 purchased won't be ready for delivery until 2023, reported Xinhua Friday citing Brazilian news website G1. Rio 2016 Summer Olympics are to be held in Rio de Janeiro between Aug 5-21 Brazil made the purchase to upgrade its air force fleet of Mirage jets, which are about to be...

(Reuters) - Brazil on Wednesday is expected to announce it chose Sweden's Saab (SAABb.ST) to supply its Air Force with a new generation of fighter jets, according to a Brazilian government source. Brazilian media on Wednesday also reported that Saab had emerged the victor for the long-pending contract, negotiated over the course of a decade and involving three consecutive Brazilian presidencies. The government source told Reuters that the contract was awarded after Brazil decided that Saab provided the most affordable option for the new jets as well as the best conditions for technology transfer to the South American country. Brazil...

Sweden is in full surrender to sharia, dying for its apathy and accommodation to the horrors of Islam. According to authorities, a 34-year-old Somali Islamist, who violently raped a dying Swedish woman and continued to rape her dead body, will not be deported. On September 27th, 2013 the man in question, along with another man, violated a Swedish woman in a garage in Stockholm. The woman slipped into an unconscious state during the attack, but was not dead at the beginning of the attack. She was actively dying, no doubt due to the extreme trauma she was under. However, she...

Call it Adoption Equality. Or the logical endpoint of liberal advocacy on behalf of the oppressed. The man will now be able to adopt, after a review by the municipality’s social affairs committee (socialnämnd) found that his risk of relapse was considered low, with all but one of ten members of the committee voting yes to the man’s application to adopt. Maybe he was just guilty of possessing child pornography. But at least he didn’t actually molest any kids. Surely no society on the planet is so far gone that it would actually allow an active pedophile to adopt...

Västra Vång in Blekinge is now a sleepy rural community on Sweden’s southern Baltic coast. It has never been mentioned in ancient or medieval writings. So why are gold figurines and bronze busts turning up there? ... No less than 29 guldgubbar have been found beneath the turf. The term means “little old man of gold”, and is also found in Norway and Denmark. These are thin pieces of hammered gold, fashioned as clothed men or women. The figurines date back to the 6th century AD and were made for a few centuries. They are made of very thinly beaten...

Plans for a student group from Denmark to make a three-day visit to Malmö in southern Sweden have been scrapped at the last minute over safety concerns voiced by Danish parents. Eighth graders from Malmö's Östra junior high school had been in touch with their counterparts at the Hjallese school in Odense since last summer. The two classes used Facebook and internet chats to build bonds as part of an initiative by the Danish school, the local Sydsvenskan newspaper reported. The exchange was set to enter a new phase in December after the Malmö students invited those from Denmark to...

Swedish police are concerned that young people's attitudes towards sex crimes are too lax, with officers in Stockholm receiving a significant rise in reported rapes in recent years. In the southern suburbs of Stockholm alone, there have been 90 reports of various sexual attacks this year involving victims under the age of 18. Police have put their foot down, claiming never to have seen so many reports of rape, and especially gang rape, in their years on the force. "It's as if the grey area of what's ok and what's criminal has become even more grey," police officer Mihajlo Mrdjen...

The cold claims more lives in Britain than in Sweden, where temperatures regularly plunge as low as -30C (-22F) in winter, campaigners say. There were 25,535 ‘excess winter deaths’ – people who died as a direct result of the cold – in Britain in 2011-12, compared with 3,385 in Sweden, it was claimed. Taking into account Britain’s higher population, EWDs accounted for 4.61 per cent of all fatalities in this country, compared with 3.76 per cent in Sweden, according to fuel poverty campaign group the Energy Bill Revolution. Britain was labelled the ‘cold man of Europe’ by the group, which...

Last Good Friday, two Russian Tu-22M3 bombers, escorted by four Su-27 fighter aircraft, simulated an aerial assault on two military targets in Sweden— the first near the capital Stockholm and the second in a southern part of the country. This was then followed in September by Zapad-13 (“Zapad” means “West”), Russia’s biannual military exercise, which this year was jointly held with Belarusian forces variously in Belarus, along the borders of Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and in Kaliningrad, Russia’s non-contiguous seaport territory that lies between Poland and Lithuania. Though initially billed as a counterterrorism operation targeting “illegal armed groups,” Zapad-13 was very...

Sweden has become the first Western nation to develop national dietary guidelines that reject the popular low-fat diet dogma in favor of low-carb high-fat nutrition advice. The switch in dietary advice followed the publication of a two-year study by the independent Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment. The committee reviewed 16,000 studies published through May 31, 2013. Butter, olive oil, heavy cream, and bacon are not harmful foods. Quite the opposite. Fat is the best thing for those who want to lose weight. And there are no connections between a high fat intake and cardiovascular disease. On Monday, SBU, the...

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

A woman was left gobsmacked when she learned the gold ring she stumbled across in a field was 2,000 years old. "I walk through that field several times a week. At first I thought it was one of the little rings we put around the chickens’ feet," Camilla Lundin, 51, told The Local. "I thought it was strange that it was so far away from home." Lundin took the ring home and showed her husband, who also didn't believe it was anything special. But Lundin took a picture which she sent to her brother, who immediately told her it was...

Annika Hernroth-Rothstein is a Jewish political activist in Sweden who is fed up with her country’s moves toward outlawing the core practices of her faith. Living in a country that prides itself on being a model of diversity and openness – which has even invited every Syrian seeking refuge — Hernroth-Rothstein decided to file for asylum in her own country. Swedish activist Annika Hernroth-Rothstein filed for asylum in her own country. (Image source: truthandfiction.wordpress.com) She has conceded that her application is a publicity stunt, but in an article in Mosaic Magazine announcing her decision, she wrote: Absurd?  No doubt. I...