An 18-year-old is in critical condition in the hospital after two explosives detonated in an apartment building in the southern Swedish city of Malmö. The youngster is suspected of possible involvement in the preparation of the prematurely exploded devices.
In other news, last week the United States became a net oil exporter for the first time in almost 75 years.
To see the headlines and the articles, click “Continue reading” below.
Thanks to C. Cantoni, Caroline Glick, Insubria, Reader from Chicago, Vlad Tepes, and all the other tipsters who sent these in.
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State of Emergency Declared as “Historic Winter Storm” Pounds Carolinas; 100,000 Without Power
A significant and possibly “historic” winter storm is pounding North Carolina to central and southern Virginia with heavy snowfall will bring the likelihood of widespread power outages and travel disruptions into early next week.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The U.S. Just Became a Net Oil Exporter for the First Time in 75 Years
America turned into a net oil exporter last week, breaking almost 75 years of continued dependence on foreign oil and marking a pivotal — even if likely brief — moment toward what U.S. President Donald Trump has branded as “energy independence.”
The shift to net exports is the dramatic result of an unprecedented boom in American oil production, with thousands of wells pumping from the Permian region of Texas and New Mexico to the Bakken in North Dakota to the Marcellus in Pennsylvania.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
As Brexit Goes ‘Down the Plug Hole’, Farage Prepares New Party for ‘Biggest Battle Yet’
Nigel Farage has confirmed he is planning to launch a new political force to save Brexit, vowing he “won’t lie down” as the political establishment tries to overturn the referendum result.
The Brexit pioneer, who resigned from UKIP last week, told the Sunday Telegraph: “I sense within me I have not fought my biggest battle yet — that is how it feels. Whether it is happenstance, serendipity, destiny.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium PM Reshuffles Government After Government Crisis
BRUSSELS — Prime Minister Charles Michel reshuffled his government after the leading coalition party said it could not accept Belgium backing a U.N. migration pact due to be endorsed early next week.
After days of teetering on the brink of collapse, the centre-right government decided to continue without the N-VA party, whose party leader Bart De Wever said that “we cannot agree with this pact.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Belgian Government Breaks as ‘Treacherous’ Prime Minister Announces to Sign UN Migration Pact
After days of crisis over the UN Migration Pact, the Belgian government has broken up. Essence of the split is the Prime Minister’s trip to the UN Migration Conference in Morocco.
For several days, Belgium’s largest party, the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) said it could not agree with Belgium signing the pact.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
British Ports Chief Shoots Down ‘No Deal’ Brexit Scare Stories
The Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Major Ports Group has shot down claims of a six-month “logjam” at Britain’s ports in the event of a “No Deal” Brexit in flames.
Writing to the Telegraph newspaper “on behalf of the United Kingdom’s major port operators, responsible for handling 75 per cent of the country’s seaborne trade”, Tim Morris was highly dismissive of headlines suggesting a clean break with the EU on World Trade Organization (WTO) terms — “No Deal” — would result in trade seizing up.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Cases of Female Genital Mutilation More Than Doubled in the UK Last Year
Last week, the abhorrent practices of Dr. Fakhruddin Attar and emergency room physician, Jumana Nagarwala were exposed after they performed female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures after-hours at a medical practice just outside of Detroit.
It was alarming enough for something like this to transpire in the United States — so naturally, the mind may wander to question how the United Kingdom — with their unfettered open borders policy and shipping in of migrants en masse — fares in comparison to the U.S.’s few recorded cases of the brutal practice.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
CDP to Play Key Role in Italian Economic Recovery — Tria
EUR 200-bn plan for 2019-2021
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — State lender Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP) is set to play a growing role in the recovery of the Italian economy, Minister Giovanni Tria said Wednesday during the presentation of the CDP’s new industrial plan. The economy minister said that he believes that “it is an important step forward in the consolidation of the CDP’s role and the overall strategy” to get the country’s economy back on its feet and moving forward. The group launched its 2019-2021 industrial plan on Wednesday, with 200 billion euros in three years to support enterprises, infrastructure and the country.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Ex-IMF Director Slams Anti-Brexit Economic Forecasts: ‘Farfetched Stories’
Former International Monetary Fund (IMF) director Ashoka Mody has poured scorn on the anti-Brexit forecasts produced by officials recently, suggesting they are “making up the numbers”.
The Indian-born economist and Princeton University professor savaged the extreme, negative “No Deal” Brexit scenarios which have been pushed out by the Bank of England, led by Goldman Sachs alumnus Mark Carney, and Her Majesty’s Treasury, led by Chancellor Philip “Remainer Phil” Hammond, as having “no basis in economic theory or empirical findings.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
France: Viral Video Shows EU-Branded Armoured Vehicle Crushing Paris Protests
Pictures and video of an armoured personnel carrier emblazoned with the European Union flag helping to crush Gilet Jaunes protesters in Paris have gone viral on social media, with many suggesting it shows what might be in store for Europe once the bloc gets the unified army it is planning.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Geert Wilders Praises Glazov’s “Jihadist Psychopath”: “Deserves the Highest Praise”
We are excited to announce that Frontpage Editor Jamie Glazov’s new book, Jihadist Psychopath: How He Is Charming, Seducing, and Devouring Us, is being released on December 18, 2018.
Jihadist Psychopath, which is Amazon’s #1 New Release in the “Islam” and “Medical Mental Illness” categories, offers a unique perspective on the terror war. Like no other work, it unveils the world of psychopathy and reveals, step by step, how Islamic Supremacists are duplicating the sinister methodology of psychopaths who routinely charm, seduce, capture, and devour their prey.
Jihadist Psychopath unveils how every element of the formula by which the psychopath subjugates his victim is used by the Islamic Supremacist to ensnare and subjugate non-Muslims. And in the same way that the victim of the psychopath is complicit in his own destruction, so too Western civilization is now embracing and enabling its own conquest and consumption.
We are honored to share that Geert Wilders has stated that Jihadist Psychopath “deserves the highest praise” and that Jamie Glazov is “one of the most courageous and perceptive journalists of the free world.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany Will Not Put DITIB Under Surveillance: Report
Germany’s domestic intelligence agency BfV gave up plans to put Turkish-Muslim umbrella group DITIB under surveillance, local media reported on Sunday.
The DITIB, a Muslim organization founded by Turkish migrants in Germany, has become the target of anti-Turkey propaganda in recent years, and opposition politicians claimed that it was controlled by Ankara, involved in propaganda and spying activities.
According to the weekly Welt am Sonntag, German Interior Ministry and the BfV could not find any strong evidence backing such claims about DITIB, and recently gave up plans to monitor the group.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Twice as Many on Invalidity Pensions in South Than North
6.7% of people in south claim benefit for disabled,long-term ill
(ANSA) — Rome, December 5 — The proportion of people claiming invalidity pensions is more than twice as high in southern Italy than it is in the north, according to a report released by pensions and social security agency INPS on Wednesday.
The agency said 2.4% of residents in northern Italy claimed the benefit for people who are disabled or long-term ill in 2017.
This compares to 3.2% in central Italy and 6.7% for the regions of the south, including Sardinia and Sicily.
INPS said 932,289 people were on invalidity pensions in 2017, down 3.3% with respect to 2016.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Italy: Confusion Over New ‘Eco-Tax’ on Cars
Budget amendment imposes levy on basis of CO2 emissions
(ANSA) — Rome, December 6 — An amendment to the budget law that would bring in new levies on cars on the basis of their carbon-dioxide emissions to encourage people to buy vehicles that have a lower environmental impact has caused controversy and confusion. Deputy Premier and Labour and Industry Minister Luigi Di Maio said the government would hold talks with constructors and consumers after objections to the plan were raised.
“We don’t want to penalize families or cause a shock to the auto market,” said 5-Star Movement (M5S) leader Di Maio. He added that there would be “no new tax for cars already in circulation”.
Interior Minister and fellow Deputy Premier Matteo Salvini told Radio Anch’io on Thursday that he was “against any hypothesis of new taxes on cars, which are already one of the most-taxed assets”.
Massimiliano Romeo, the Senate whip of Salvini’s League party, said that the measure would be changed in the Upper House.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
No Chance of Italy Dropping Euro — Visco
Bank of Italy governor warns against unthought-out comments
(ANSA) — Naples, December 7 — Bank of Italy Governor Ignazio Visco said Friday that there is no chance of Italy dropping the euro, while warning against politicians making statements that could raise doubts about this. “The risk of Italy leaving (the eurozone) does not exist,” Visco told an event in Naples organized by daily newspaper Il Mattino.
“If the markets do not think that way, (it is because they have been) stimulated by unthought-out interpretations and statements”.
| — Hat tip: Insubria | [Return to headlines] |
Over 1,700 Arrests in France as Yellow Vest Protesters Want Macron to Resign
The yellow vest movement has grown throughout Europe since the 17 November protest originating in France.
This weekend marked the fourth weekend of protests, which have mostly been peaceful but a handful of violence and clashes with police has occurred as the government seems to not be responding.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
The protests in Sweden are quite different from the ones in France and Belgium. The Swedish ones aren’t violent, nothing is burned and there are no clashes with the police.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Steve Bannon Declares War on Pope With Academy for Western Culture in Pontiff’s Backyard
Like something out of a Bond villain’s backstory, Steve Bannon has won a bid to take over an Italian monastery in the mountains of Italy built by Pope Innocent III in 1204. He plans to turn it into an academy to defend Christendom and Western culture. The sprawling castle encompasses several buildings, with hundreds of rooms, a guest house built into a rock, and a library with 36,000 volumes. Nicholas Farrell of the Spectator visited it and came away feeling he had been in a storybook. “[I]t made me think of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Harry Potter books,” he wrote. YouTube tours of the place confirm that description, down to an apothecary complete with tinctures of mandrake. One almost expects to see Professor Flitwick dashing through the halls levitating feathers.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Sweden: Teen Seriously Injured in Double Explosion in Malmö
An 18-year-old man who is fighting for his life in hospital is suspected of having been involved in the double explosion which caused him his injuries.
The young man sustained life-threatening injuries on Saturday afternoon after a homemade bomb exploded in a residential building in the Malmö district of Kroksbäck.
| — Hat tip: Vlad Tepes | [Return to headlines] |
UK Government to Sign UN Migration Pact and ‘Ignores’ Worries of the Public
The list of countries refusing to be a part of the disastrous UN Migration Pact continues to grow. The British government, however, will not be joining that list, despite the petition which flew to over 100,000 signatories in a matter of days.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
UK: ‘Bin the Backstop’ Boris Battles for Brexit
Boris Johnson continues to step up to the plate and fight for a proper Brexit as the scheduled vote on Theresa May’s deal approaches.
He has used his weekly Telegraph hit to point out how he had listened to MPs rise to speak during the debate on the deal in Parliament: “But as speaker after speaker stood up to make clear, we certainly want a deal — but we don’t want the appalling constraints of the Irish backstop.”
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
While Macron’s Paris is on Fire, Salvini’s Rome Shines as He Puts Italians First
To celebrate six months in power Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini holds an ‘Italians first’ rally in Rome. Around the same time Paris was on fire as thousands of protesters want Macron to leave office.
In his speech to 80,000 supporters, the Deputy Prime Minister and populist said in regards to the neighbouring “Yellow Vests” protests: “Those who sow poverty reap protests, those who sow false promises reap the response of those on the margins and the countryside”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Yellow Vests: Erdogan and Trump Pile in on Macron
The fourth weekend of riotous protests in France as part of the Yellow Vests movement drew global attention, particularly from other world leaders.
US President Donald Trump took the opportunity to criticise the Paris Agreement, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned police violence.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Caroline Glick: Israel’s “Gatekeepers” Vs. Democracy
Israel has no written constitution — but all the same, it is steeped in a deep and dangerous constitutional crisis. In the balance hangs nothing less than the country’s ability to remain a democracy, where the people elect their leaders and the elected leaders govern the country.
Presently, a powerful group of unelected, self-appointed “gatekeepers” is challenging the foundations of Israel’s democratic order. These self-empowered “gatekeepers” seek to end Israeli democracy by acting as a wedge between the people and their elected leaders and preventing those leaders from using the power vested in them by voters.
The present crisis was revealed starkly on Tuesday in an otherwise unimportant and deeply boring hearing on Israel’s dairy industry at the Knesset’s Economic Affairs Committee.
But to understand what happened, it is important to go back to November 5. That day, Deputy attorney-general Dina Zilber was asked to represent the position of the government regarding a controversial bill that would block state funding to artists and productions that campaign against Israel. Rather than present the government’s position, Zilber brutally attacked the bill. In an outburst entirely bereft of legal argumentation, Zilber effectively said that Israel was losing its soul.
This statement was in keeping with Zilber’s long record of abusing her power as the deputy attorney-general to advance her far-Left political agenda on everything from undermining the development of Israeli communities beyond the armistice lines to requiring religious groups to either permit men and women to participate in their events or be denied access to public facilities…
| — Hat tip: Caroline Glick | [Return to headlines] |
‘Your Time is Up’ South Africa Sets Date for White Farmer Land Grabs — March 2019
The country’s National Assembly approved a proposal to change the constitution to make the so-called reforms legal in a vote of 183 to 77.
This paves the way for land to be taken from farmers without giving any kind of compensation.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Belgium Left With Minority Government Over UN Migration Pact Dispute
Belgium’s Prime Minister Charles Michel was left leading a minority administration on Sunday after the Flemish nationalist party quit the ruling coalition over his support of a UN migration pact.
The New Flemish Alliance (N-VA), the largest of the coalition’s four parties, had earlier threatened to leave if Michel backed the accord, which has become a cause celebre for European anti-immigration parties.
…
| — Hat tip: C. Cantoni | [Return to headlines] |
Democratic Countries Should Back Out of the UN Global Compact
The ongoing and bitter dispute between the EU and its Eastern European member states — countries such as Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic — that have refused to take in migrants as part of the EU’s quota system, might be approaching some sort of compromise. In an internal document circulated to EU interior ministers in Brussels in early December, Reuters reported, EU member states that refuse to host migrants in their countries could be exempted from doing so, if instead they show “alternative measures of solidarity.” According to diplomats, these “alternative measures” are apparently EU code for “paying into the EU budget or paying toward development projects in Africa”.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Germany: Merkel Party Member Calls Her Signing the UN Migration Pact “An Act of Treason”
While most of the Christian Democratic Union delegates were highly supportive and some even had signs reading “Thanks boss”, Eugen Abler was having none of it.
He appealed to Merkel to not sign the UN pact for migration and called plans to do so an act of treason.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Hungary Rejects ‘UN Refugee Pact’ Pact as Well: “it Creates a Security Risk We Cannot Tolerate”
As it has done with the United Nations’ migration pact, Hungary rejects the organisation’s global refugee pact as well, the foreign minister said on Friday, arguing that the document was dangerous and could encourage more migration.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
In Britain, the rage over Muslim rape gangs and Theresa May’s Brexit foul-up is spreading. In Germany, anger about Merkel’s recklessly transformative refugee policies is mounting. In France, the growing cost of immigrant freeloaders to taxpayers has sparked the most sensational public demonstrations since 1968. In Italy and Austria, opponents of the Islamization of Europe now hold the reins of power. Elsewhere in Western Europe, more and more citizens are standing up to their masters’ open-borders dhimmitude.
| — Hat tip: Reader from Chicago | [Return to headlines] |
Re UK: “Bin the Backstop”. This should be a non-issue; neither the Republic of Ireland nor the North is going to build border posts, and even the overweening EU is unlikely to send its putative new army to enforce them. If Mrs May and her government had any conviction, they would tell Brussels that this is the situation and they must deal with it.