News Round-Up: Trump Delivers As Expected, EU’s von der Leyen’s Obsession with Net Zero and German Parliament Discussing Ban of AFD
Every week, the editorial team of Freedom Research compiles a round-up of news that caught our eye, or what felt like under-reported aspects of news deserving more attention.
Over the past week, the following topics attracted our attention:
Trump's first executive orders: protection of free speech, end to climate alarm, getting US out of the WHO, prohibiting CBDCs, etc.
Ursula von der Leyen: we have to speed up the transition towards Net Zero.
Polish PM: If we go bankrupt, no one will care about the natural environment.
German parliament discussing the ban of AfD.
Sweden granted the lowest ever number of residence permits to asylum seekers in 2024.
Trump's first executive orders: protection of free speech, end to climate alarm, and getting US out of the WHO
"Over the last 4 years, the previous administration trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms, often by exerting substantial coercive pressure on third parties, such as social media companies, to moderate, deplatform, or otherwise suppress speech that the Federal Government did not approve," reads one of the first presidential executive orders signed by president Donald Trump on Monday. The order explains that by calling postings ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘malinformation’ the government infringed on the constitutionally protected speech rights of American citizens across the United States in a manner that advanced the government’s preferred narrative about significant matters of public debate. “Government censorship of speech is intolerable in a free society,” the order states.
Going forward, Trump pledges to ensure that no official, employee, or agent of the federal government could unconstitutionally engage in or encourage activities that restrict the free speech of American citizens. Trump also pledges to ensure that no US taxpayer resources are used to restrict free speech. In addition, appropriate measures will be taken to correct past government misconduct. In this context, the US Attorney General has been tasked by Trump to investigate and report on the operation of censorship over the past four years.

Another of Trump's executive orders concerns the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization (WHO). The main reasons given in the executive order are that the WHO failed to stand up to its task during the Covid crisis and other global health crises. At the same time, the contribution of US taxpayers to the WHO is too high, according to Trump. With the order, the US immediately pauses the future transfer of any United States Government funds, support, or resources to the WHO. While the procedures to leave the organisation are under way, the US will also cease negotiations on the WHO Pandemic Agreement and the amendments to the International Health Regulations. In the case of both agreements, there are well-founded concerns that, when they enter into force, the WHO member states will cede too much decision-making power on many health issues to the organisation.
Separately, Trump also ordered the US to tap into domestic energy, i.e. oil and gas, while putting the brakes on climate policy. To this end, Trump declared an energy emergency, which gives the president the power to make what he considers to be the necessary decisions more quickly. The necessary decisions include, for example, the deployment of oil and gas fields, which Trump plans not only to use to meet the energy needs of the US itself but also to export energy – particularly to Europe and Asia. In this way, Trump has also lifted the ban on the export of liquefied natural gas imposed by former president Joe Biden. Alongside this, Trump also sees the deployment of other natural resources as important, and he hopes to accelerate those with his executive orders.
On the other hand, Trump has, for example, halted plans for offshore wind farms on the grounds that they are expensive and damaging to wildlife. He also rescinded Biden's executive order that half of new vehicles should be electric by 2030. Trump also ordered the withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, as he had previously promised.
In a separate executive order, Trump ended the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programmes and promised to restore a meritocratic approach to recruitment. "Federal hiring should not be based on impermissible factors, such as one’s commitment to illegal racial discrimination under the guise of “equity,” or one’s commitment to the invented concept of “gender identity” over sex. Inserting such factors into the hiring process subverts the will of the People, puts critical government functions at risk, and risks losing the best-qualified candidates," the order states.
On gender identities of all kinds, Trump also said in his speech shortly after being sworn into presidency that his administration would recognize only two genders – men and women. These words were backed up by an executive order to replace gender identity with a person's sex, which is not changeable and based on reality. All government departments must ensure that official documents accurately reflect a person's sex and stop promoting so-called gender ideology. "Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being. The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system. Basing Federal policy on truth is critical to scientific inquiry, public safety, morale, and trust in government itself," the order explains.
In order to prevent large-scale illegal immigration, Trump declared a state of emergency on the southern border, sent the US military to establish order there, and issued several other orders to deal with illegal immigration and to deport illegals.
Trump also issued an executive order creating the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). It will be tasked with making government more efficient and productive.
Another development is that Trump also prohibited the establishment, issuance, circulation, and use of a CBDC within the jurisdiction of the United States.
Trump has also promised to bring back troops booted for refusing COVID vaccine with back pay.
And on top of all that, on Thursday, Trump signed orders to declassify documents concerning the murders of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin L. King Jr.
Ursula von der Leyen: we have to speed up the transition towards net zero
At a time when US president Donald Trump has sharply put the brakes on climate alarm, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, in a speech at the World Economic Forum, reaffirmed that the climate crisis remains the most important global challenge for her and that the momentum towards a carbon-neutral world must therefore be further accelerated.
“All continents will have to speed up the transition towards Net Zero, and deal with the growing burden of climate change,” von der Leyen said in a speech at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday. The impact of climate change cannot be ignored, she said, with heat waves in Asia and flooding in Brazil, Indonesia, Africa, and Europe. Climate change is also causing wildfires in Canada, Greece, and California and more hurricanes in the US and the Caribbean, according to von der Leyen.
In reality, however, von der Leyen's claims about more frequent extreme weather events are untrue, and even the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirms this in its scientific reports, which the authorities supposedly rely on for their policies.

In the same vein, von der Leyen identified climate change as the biggest challenge the world still faces. "Climate change is still on top of the global agenda. From decarbonizing to nature-based solutions. From building a circular economy to developing nature credits,” she said. “The Paris Agreement continues to be the best hope of all humanity. So Europe will stay the course, and keep working with all nations that want to protect nature and stop global warming,” von der Leyen added.
Polish PM: If we go bankrupt, no one will care about the natural environment
In a speech before the European Parliament, Polish prime minister Donald Tusk called for a critical review of the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ climate policy as energy prices have risen and with that, the competitiveness of the continent has plummeted. "Europe cannot lose the global competition. It cannot become a continent of naive people and ideas. If we go bankrupt, no one will care about the natural environment in the world anymore," Tusk said.
Prepearing for the six-month presidency of the EU, the Polish premier asked the European Parliament to undertake a "full and very critical review" of all the Green Deal laws. Tusk name-checked the expansion of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) that will put a price on the emissions from fuel combustion in buildings and road transport from 2027 onwards as a policy that might lead to "terribly predictable" consequences.

In an ominous statement, Tusk warned that high energy prices could provoke enough popular discontent to "wipe out" democratically elected governments and implored lawmakers to relinquish "hard doctrines and ideologies" in favour of "common sense." "We really need to get a grip on this issue," he said.
German parliament discussing the ban of AfD
For the first time, the German parliament is to debate an appeal for a ban on the main opposition party in the country Alternative for Germany (Alternative für Deutschland - AfD) in their plenary session, DPA International writes. "With its constantly increasing radicalism, the AfD is expressing historically revisionist positions with increasing blatancy," one of the initiators, Marco Wanderwitz of the centre-right CDU, said.
He cited a recent statement by the AfD co-head Alice Weidel, in which she termed Adolf Hitler a communist. She did say that in a recent conversation with Elon Musk on X as she explained AfD has nothing in common with Hitler and the nazi party. As the nazi party was a national socialist party, she called Hitler a communist.

Carmen Wegge of the centre-left SPD called on the Bundestag to open the way for the Constitutional Court to take up the issue of an AfD ban.
The initiators are a cross-party group and include a Green Party member, a member of The Left, and the sole member of the SSW Danish-speaking minority group, along with members of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD).
Under the German constitution, either house of the parliament or the government can appeal to the top court for a ban on a party.
Thus far 124 of the 733 members of the Bundestag have backed the appeal, with the outcome of the debate still unclear.
Sweden granted the lowest ever number of residence permits to asylum seekers in 2024
Sweden granted the lowest number of residence permits to asylum seekers and their relatives on record in 2024, Reuters reports.
Sweden's minority government and its backers, the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats, won the 2022 election on a promise to keep reducing immigration and gang crime, which are linked.
Since then it has introduced and proposed several measures to make Sweden less attractive to immigrants, such as making it harder to become a citizen and gain residence permits, less generous rules for bringing family members over to Sweden and slashed the number of the UNHCR quota of immigrants accepted.
According to Swedish Migration Agency’s data, 6,250 asylum seekers and their relatives were given residency permits in 2024, a fall of 42% compared to when the government came into power and the lowest number ever since comparable records began in 1985.
"I think it will need to continue to decrease," migration minister Johan Forssell told at a news conference. "We now have a historically low asylum rate, but that should be put in relation to a number of years when it has been at very high levels."

The number of people in Sweden, who were born abroad has doubled in the past two decades to about a fifth of its 10.5-million population.
The country recorded a peak of just over 86,000 granted asylum related residency permits in 2016, the year after the migration crisis when 163,000 people sought asylum in Sweden, the highest number per capita in the EU.
Sweden has been struggling with gang violence in recent years. E.g. in April last year a father cycling with his child was shot dead on the street and at the beginning of February, there were bomb explosions almost every day in the country.
This rise in gang violence and organised crime in Sweden is directly linked to large-scale immigration. Gangs involved in drug trafficking are fronted by criminals of foreign origin, who typically recruit young people with an immigrant background into their gangs.
The problems of uncontrolled immigration in Sweden and the labelling of citizens who draw attention to the problems as misinformation spreaders was also a topic in an analysis we published last year.
It appears that Germany wants to go all-in on full-time fascism by banning AfD. And then there's the outrageously stupid case of Ursula von der Lying, trying to urge the world to go Net Zero. Well, the 16th century is her vision. Life then was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. She wants to make the 16th century great again.
Perhaps you would like to comment on some of the other of Trump's promised 'deliveries'.
Threats of military force against a European country, close to yourself.
Suggestions that all Palestinians in Gaza move to Jordan or Egypt. Why not the USA?
Appointment as ambassador to Israel someone who thinks the West Bank is Judea and Samaria and belongs to Israel.
"Massive tax cut". There are 11 billionaires in the cabinet, so no difficulty in knowing who these will benefit.