The trial of the founders of the Freedom Convoy in Canada was supposed to last only 16 days, but due to legal disputes and unprepared witnesses, among other things, the trial has been delayed. It is now coming to an end and is expected to be over in a few days.
The trial of Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, the leaders of the Canadian Freedom Convoy, began last September. They are charged with crimes including vandalism, obstructing police, inciting vandalism and uttering threats in connection with the protests.
The trial was expected to last 16 days, but has been delayed due to a number of factors, including legal complications, technical delays, unavailability of witnesses, and problems with the handling of police evidence. Prosecutors have used video footage of the demonstrations to argue that Lich and Barber had control over the participants and encouraged them to stay in Ottawa. The defense, on the other hand, argues that the demonstrators were directed by the police, with instructions on where to move around the city.
The prosecution’s case wrapped up before Christmas, and it is now time for the defense to present its side, Canada’s CBC reports.
Banned from social media
The trial only resumed for one day on January 4 due to a lack of available court dates. However, the defense has said it needs a total of five more days, which means the trial is now coming to an end. So far, neither Barber nor Lich have testified, and there is no indication that they will.
Lich was banned from using social media as part of his bail conditions, but in December he was allowed to reactivate his account on X, formerly Twitter, after a 22-month hiatus.
– I have been hoping for quite some time to have my conditions varied and with the lack of evidence we have seen so far (and) the unexpected length of time the trial is taking, we felt it was a good time to have this specific condition reviewed, Lich said in a statement to True North in connection with the reactivation.
Once the trial is over, the judge will have up to six months to issue a verdict. A conviction for vandalism carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.
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German politician Friedrich Merz advocates for welfare cuts while simultaneously wanting to increase both Ukraine aid and military spending.
Liberal democracy is under attack from new “autocratic alliances”, claimed German Chancellor Friedrich Merz this week. In the same breath, he acknowledged that the West’s attractiveness is “noticeably diminishing” and that the world no longer looks up to Western values in the same way as before.
Former BlackRock executive Merz and French President Emmanuel Macron painted a dark picture of the West’s crisis on Friday. Both leaders claim that liberal democracy is under attack from various directions, and according to Merz, it is an “axis of autocratic states” that now challenges the liberal world order.
— The centers of power in the world are shifting to an extent not seen since the end of the Cold War. An axis of autocratic states that challenges the liberal order around the world is directly challenging Western democracies, he claimed.
However, why this axis has formed was not explained in detail. In the same speech, he was forced to acknowledge that the West’s attractiveness is declining:
— The radiance of what we in the West call liberal democracy is noticeably diminishing. It is no longer a given that the world will orient itself towards us, that it will follow our values of liberal democracy.
Merz has also recently stated that Germany can no longer afford to finance the welfare state while advocating for investments in military rearmament and continued support for Ukraine.
Macron finds convenient scapegoat
Macron spoke of a “degeneration of democracy” in Europe and found a convenient scapegoat in social media platforms.
— We’ve been guilty of handing over our public democratic space to social networks owned by big American entrepreneurs and Chinese firms, he said.
However, the possibility that the West’s own policies contributed to this development was not addressed at all by Merz or Macron.
— Democratic debate is turning into a debate of hatred, continued the French president.
Merz, Macron, Polish Prime Minister Tusk and British Prime Minister Starmer. Photo: Number 10/CC BY 2.0
Putin sees multipolar world
Russian President Vladimir Putin presented a completely different analysis on Thursday. At the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia, he described the development as natural.
— Multipolarity has become a direct consequence of attempts to establish and preserve global hegemony, a response to the obsessive desire to arrange everyone into a single hierarchy, with Western countries at the top, Putin said.
Putin also claimed that democracy is in decline in the West. As an example, he mentioned Romania, where the court invalidated the presidential election last year.
Merz also acknowledged that Europe has become “economically weaker” and that the social promises made are “so much harder to fulfill today than they used to be”.
The solution? Europe must “refocus on its economic competitiveness” and “oppose a new wave of protectionism in the world”. This is essentially the same mantra European leaders have repeated for decades – so far with limited success.
The European Commission will develop guidelines on how water consumption can be reduced by 10 percent by 2030.
The strategy is based on providing citizens with “increased knowledge” about “how to save water” and introducing “sound pricing policies,” while modernizing infrastructure.
The European Commission presents its strategy for water resilience with the message that “global water demand will exceed supply by 40 percent” by 2030. Therefore, Europeans must reduce their consumption as soon as possible, it is claimed.
Concretely, the strategy, which has also been highlighted by Fria Tider, means that the Commission will develop detailed guidelines on how water consumption can be reduced by 10 percent – according to many critics, yet another example of how the power holders in Brussels want to control citizens’ daily lives.
The methods include, among other things, “increasing public knowledge” through education about “how to save water” and introducing “sound pricing policies” – a formulation that according to analysts is likely to mean higher water costs for consumers.
The strategy also states that the EU needs to “reduce water leakage from pipelines and modernize water infrastructure through public and private financing and digital solutions.” Infrastructure is one of five priority areas in the strategy.
Yet another forum
The Commission’s focus is on governance and implementation, infrastructure and investments, digitalization and AI, research and innovation, and security and preparedness. Both behavioral change among citizens and infrastructure modernization are highlighted as very important.
The EU document also emphasizes that “Europe is a world leader in water technology and holds 40 percent of the world’s patents” and that “our water industry generates €107 billion and employs 1.7 million people”.
The strategy further notes that “very persistent pollutants, including PFAS, continue to accumulate in EU waters with harmful health effects that could cost €52-84 billion per year.” The solution according to the Commission is “water-smart methods” and “green infrastructure”.
From December 2025, the Commission will organize a “water resilience forum” every two years where various stakeholders can evaluate the efforts. The strategy is one of the priorities for 2024-2029 of the heavily criticized EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán issues a stark warning that European nations face extinction unless birth rates increase.
In harsh terms, he criticizes Western Europe’s “population replacement through migration” and explains that Hungary invests its economic resources in families instead of mass immigration.
In a post on X, the prime minister articulates his clear position:
“If a nation has no children, it has no future. The West chooses replacement through migration, we choose our families and our children. That is why we dedicate every possible economic resource to supporting them. Our future will not be imported from abroad”, he states.
In a radio interview, the Hungarian prime minister develops his argument and describes the demographic crisis as an existential issue.
— In the end it comes down to a very simple thought. If not enough children are born we will disappear, says Orbán, and continues:
— It must be understood that a shrinking country cannot be successful. Thus, when a community shrinks, its members will inevitably be increasingly worse off.
“A matter of survival”
Hungary’s leader emphasizes that the country’s population is “a matter of survival, both in the long term from a histtorical perspective and in the short term for the sake of economy”.
The Hungarian leader presents two paths for Europe to handle the demographic crisis. He is highly critical of the Western model.
— There is the Western path. There, not enough children are born and migrants are brought in one by one. There are fewer Germans or fewer French, and they are replaced by Muslims, he says.
Orbán explains Hungary’s strategy: “That path can be chosen, others tried it before us, we kept our heads down, did not let foreigners in, watched what happened to those who did, and what we not see in western Europe is not attractive. I do not recommend that we copy it, but then we need to have our own children”.
Massive support for families with children
The prime minister acknowledges that having children is a private matter, but emphasizes the state’s role in creating conditions.
— This is of course a private matter since the state cannot decide how many children someone should have, he says, but explains at the same time that Hungary still does what it can to try to create incentives for increased childbearing.
— What we can do is to support mothers who undertake giving birth to at least two children which means that for themselves and their husbands there is one child each. So they are maintaining our community.
The Hungarian leader describes how the country recognizes and rewards families with children economically.
— We recognize them, we support them, and we do not allow them to live worse lives just because they chose to have two children than those who did not. Those who are willing to raise children must be respected, acknowledged, supported and encouraged.
FBI’s new director Kash Patel has officially severed the agency’s ties with the Jewish advocacy group Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which roughly corresponds to the left-wing extremist organization Expo in Sweden.
The decision comes after ADL received harsh criticism for listing the murdered conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s organization as dangerous and “extremist”.
In recent weeks, the Jewish lobby group has faced intense criticism from tech billionaire Elon Musk and Republican politicians for its so-called “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” – a database where many conservative, nationalist and immigration-critical Americans were listed as alleged “extremists” or members of “hate groups”.
Particularly noteworthy was perhaps the inclusion of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), the conservative organization founded by Charlie Kirk, who was murdered nearly three weeks ago. TPUSA’s page on ADL’s website described the group as an organization with ties to “a range of right-wing extremists” and that had “generated support from anti-Muslim bigots, alt-lite activists and some corners of the white supremacist alt-right”.
After the massive criticism, ADL capitulated and deleted its entire “Glossary of Extremism and Hate” from the website on Tuesday evening.
“With over 1,000 entries written over many years, the ADL Glossary of Extremism has served as a source of high-level information on a wide range of topics for years. At the same time, an increasing number of entries in the Glossary were outdated. We also saw a number of entries intentionally misrepresented and misused”, the organization claimed in a statement.
The organization now claims to want to “explore new strategies and creative approaches to deliver our data and present our research more effectively” – a formulation that analysts interpret as an acknowledgment that the database was inaccurate and misleading.
FBI formally breaks all ties
The day after ADL deleted the database, FBI Director Kash Patel announced that the agency formally breaks all ties with the organization. He explained the decision with harsh criticism of his predecessor James Comey and his close cooperation with ADL.
James Comey wrote “love letters” to the ADL and embedded FBI agents with them – a group that ran disgraceful ops spying on Americans.
That era is OVER. This FBI won’t partner with political fronts masquerading as watchdogs. pic.twitter.com/R6IKpSTfuP
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) October 1, 2025
— James Comey disgraced the FBI by writing ‘love letters’ to the ADL and embedding agents with an extreme group functioning like a terrorist organization and the disgraceful operation they ran spying on Americans. That was not law enforcement, it was activism dressed up as counterterrorism, and it put Americans in danger, Patel tells Fox News Digital.
— That era is finished. This FBI formally rejects Comey’s policies and any partnership with the ADL, he continues.
Elon Musk: ADL is a hate group
Elon Musk has been one of the harshest critics and called ADL “a hate group”. In posts on X, he claimed that the FBI took its definitions of hate groups from ADL, “which is why FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk and Turning Point, instead of his murderers”.
Republican Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna demanded that ADL explain its categorization of TPUSA.
“Seems to me like if they don’t agree with you, they will label you a ‘hate group'”, Luna stated on X.
The FBI was taking their “hate group” definitions from ADL, which is why FBI was investigating Charlie Kirk & Turning Point, instead of his murderers … https://t.co/xTAfSY8vqr
The background to Patel’s criticism goes back to May 8, 2017, when then-FBI Director James Comey spoke at ADL’s national leadership conference in Washington. In a notable speech, Comey declared his and the FBI’s “love” for the Jewish lobby organization.
Comey began by referring to a 2014 speech that he called “a love letter to ADL” and continued: “Three years later I can say, from the perspective of the FBI, we’re still in love with you”.
He concluded his speech with the words: “Love, the FBI”.
This politicized behavior from an FBI director caused strong surprise among many at the time and was considered deeply inappropriate, but only now under Kash Patel’s leadership has the FBI formally distanced itself from Comey’s strange and explicit partisanship.
I gathered property records for the 19 different states that the @ADL has a regional office established.
The report reveals that in the state of Connecticut, the ADL shares an office space with the FBI.
They also share an office space with the United Nations in New York.
The ADL has close ties to the Swedish intelligence group Expo, which announced in 2022 that the two organizations would continue working together.
— Far-right extremism has always been a transnational threat, today more than ever, said Expo’s CEO Daniel Poohl, in connection with presenting a joint report that targeted the National Socialist organization Nordic Resistance Movement (Nordiska Motståndsrörelsen).
— Collaborating across borders to counter this threat is crucial. We are pleased to have collaborated with ADL to produce this report and hope to work together in the future as well, he continued.
Daniel Poohl’s Expo and ADL have had a close collaboration, and Expo is often described as ADL’s Swedish counterpart. Photo: facsimile/Youtube
ADL was founded in 1913 by the Jewish fraternal organization B’nai B’rith with the stated purpose to “stop defamation against the Jewish people” in protest against the conviction and lynching of Leo Frank who raped and murdered a 13-year-old girl in Georgia, USA.
The organization is today one of the most prominent within the international Jewish advocacy movement. They have among other things become known for their hostile attitude toward ethnic rights for European ethnic groups – while openly supporting the state of Israel as a Jewish ethnostate.
