Free Republic

Adding even more stamps to her passport! President Barack Obama’s oldest daughter, Malia Obama, took a secret, two-and-a-half-month trip to South America this past fall, The New York Times reports. Malia Obama during a tour with the Bolivian Mountain Guides agency on the Cordillera Real mountain range in Bolivia. The 18-year-old spent part of her gap year traveling to Bolivia and Peru before starting at Harvard University this coming fall. Malia traveled with a group of other teens through the Colorado-based organization Where There Be Dragons, which helps students “examine current political trends, social movements and environmental conversation efforts in...

A woman died after being mistaken for a car thief and tied to a tree infested with poisonous ants. The 52-year-old was rescued alive by police but died in hospital from breathing problems caused by severe throat swelling after her windpipe was bitten by the insects.

Bolivian President Evo Morales was left red-faced when his mobile phone suddenly blasted out of the sound of a woman sexually moaning. The humiliating moment was caught on camera as President Morales glanced at his phone during in the almost silent courtroom. In shock, the Bolivian juggled his phone attempted to silence it, but sends it flying, forcing him to jump up from his seat and grab the phone – still playing the video – from the floor. President Morales embarrassing moment sent the otherwise quiet courtroom into raptures of laughter as he scrambled to stop the “porn” playing aloud....

A new analysis of the topography of the central Andes shows the uplifting of Earth's second highest continental plateau was driven in part by a huge zone of melted rock in the crust, known as a magma body. The Altiplano-Puna plateau is a high, dry region in the central Andes that includes parts of Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile, with vast plains punctuated by spectacular volcanoes. In a study published October 25 in Nature Communications, researchers used remote sensing data and topographic modeling techniques to reveal an enormous dome in the plateau. About 1 kilometer (3,300 feet) high and hundreds of...

Wildlife officials in Peru are investigating the mass death of thousands of rare frogs near the Bolivian border. Locals estimate that the bodies of some 10,000 Titicaca water frogs have been found in Lake Titicaca and its adjoining rivers. The critically endangered amphibian, known as the ‘scrotum frog’ due to its unfortunate appearance, is believed to have been killed by polluted waters. Thousands of the large, wrinkly green frogs have been found floating on the surface of the Coata river in southern Peru in recent days, prompting the National Forestry and Wildlife Service (Serfor) to launch an investigation.

On Wednesday, the leftist Bolivian government turned away a donation of 100,000 chickens from American businessman-turned-philanthropist Bill Gates, calling it “offensive.” “He does not know Bolivia’s reality to think we are living 500 years ago, in the middle of the jungle not knowing how to produce,” César Cocarico, the country’s minister of land and rural development told journalists in La Paz, according to the London Financial Times. “Respectfully, he should stop talking about Bolivia, and once he knows more, apologize to us.” Gates rolled out his chicken plan on his blog, gatesnotes, where he declared that if he were poor,...

In West Hollywood, Pope Francis' Stand On Gays Is Unimpressive March 14, 2013 For Giancarlo Urey, a 29-year-old lawyer who spent the day in West Hollywood when Pope Francis was named to the papacy, the new leader's anti-gay stance is not a good sign. Like his predecessor in the Vatican, Francis is equally committed to conservative, traditional doctrine, people who know him say, a sensibility fostered in part by his theological studies in Germany. He was a staunch opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, issues that an increasingly secular Argentina has embraced. He once said allowing gay couples to adopt...

Iranian Army Commander Maj. Gen. Ataollah Salehi on Saturday announced that Iran intends to deploy warships and destroyers in Latin America, in a sign of the attempts of the leading state sponsor of terror to expand its military cooperation with countries opposing the US. We intend to take a longer stride in marine voyages and even go towards friendly states in Latin America," Salehi told reporters at the southern port city of Bandar Abbas, according to the semi-official Fars News Agency. Speaking at a ceremony welcoming back the Iranian Navy's 38th fleet after 75 days of international deployment, he said...

Climate Change: Researchers from developed nations who insist that humans are warming the planet have inadvertently given Third World nations a weapon to shake down capitalist nations. Or was that the plan all along? Third World nations haven't developed their economies because their governments are often run by con men, thieves, killers and tyrants. While these governments never recognize that they are the problem, they do know an opportunity for a racket when they see one. Extortion often comes with a veneer of legitimacy, though, and that's what we have in a manifesto produced by Bolivia. It is ostensibly that...

Submitted by MintPress News Desk via TheAntiMedia.org,Cables leaked by U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning reveal an apparent plot by the U.S. government to assassinate Bolivian President Evo Morales and overthrow his administration.The cables in question were published in August in “The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire,” a book in which multiple journalists along with Julian Assange analyze the contents of the treasure trove of cables Manning provided to WikiLeaks in 2010.The book devotes a section to what “The WikiLeaks Files” contributors Alexander Main and Dan Beeton call “the day-to-day mechanics of Washington’s political intervention in Latin...

Bolivian Lawmakers Approve Bill Allowing Evo Morales to Run for Re-Election Bill to change constitution still has to be ratified by a national referendum By RYAN DUBE Sept. 26, 2015 Bolivian lawmakers on Saturday approved a bill to change the constitution in order to allow President Evo Morales to run for re-election and potentially stay in office until 2025. The bill was approved by the Legislative Assembly in a marathon session that lasted about 20 hours, state news agency ABI reporte

Rut Roh – A “Refugee Relief Supply” cargo container arrives In Greece devoid of “Refugee Relief Supplies”… Watch the video to see what the “aid for Syrian refugees” was: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn-UCR5p0y0#t=10

ATHENS, Greece – Greek authorities say a partial inventory of unregistered weapons found on a Libya-bound freighter includes nearly 500,000 rounds of ammunition and 5,000 "police-style" shotguns. A coast guard statement Wednesday said that so far two of the 14 containers found on the Bolivian-flagged Haddad 1 have been searched. A coast guard special unit stopped the ship early Tuesday off Crete, and took it to the island's port of Iraklio.

Cash-strapped Venezuela is pushing for an emergency OPEC meeting and joint coordination with Russia to stem a tumble in oil prices, President Nicolas Maduro said on Tuesday night. "We're working towards a special OPEC meeting, in coming days we'll announce .... We're making contacts with OPEC governments," Maduro said during an hours-long televised broadcast. "We're evaluating the possibility that a very high ranking OPEC meeting be called, and that in coordination with the Russian Federation, President Vladimir Putin, we can advance in taking a series of actions to defend the oil market in the face of this latest fall," he...

Apparently all of that “anti-imperialist” rhetoric from Caracas was just a farce for public consumption. As Venezuela’s economy implodes amid skyrocketing inflation and crippling shortages of practically everything, Socialist strongman Nicolás Maduro (shown) has a new plan to prop up his imploding regime: annex two thirds of neighboring Guyana’s territory and almost one third of its population. The area eyed by Maduro’s autocracy is especially noteworthy now that potentially lucrative oil deposits have been discovered offshore. Unsurprisingly, a powerful alliance of the region’s socialist strongmen and their allies has sided with the regime in Venezuela. Talk of war is escalating....

"In defense of the homeland" is President Nicolas Maduro's renewed public speech, reframed in a manner to evoke patriotic emotions and divert the attention from the domestic emergency. Venezuela is suffering an economic meltdown with chronic food shortages and nearly 120% inflation (this year alone) fueling outbreaks of street violence. Companies operating there are facing increased political risks. After days of unrest and turmoil, with mobs looting supermarkets in search for living goods and food in several cities, the government has announced the expropriation of Nestlé distribution warehouses and depots, the country's biggest food company, as well PepsiCo, Cargill, and...

The daughter of Hugo Chavez, the former president who once declared 'being rich is bad,' may be the wealthiest woman in Venezuela, according to evidence reportedly in the hands of Venezuelan media outlets. Maria Gabriela Chavez, 35, the late president's second-oldest daughter, holds assets in American and Andorran banks totaling almost $4.2billion, Diario las Americas reports. ... Others close to Chavez managed to build up great personal wealth that was kept outside the petrostate. Alejandro Andrade, who served as Venezuela’s treasury minister from 2007 to 2010 and was reportedly a close associate of Chavez, was discovered to have $11.2billion in...

No link....could not find it on site. But I just tuned in to the Miami Fox station.....they are running STATE DEPARTMENT INTERVIEWS with some vets who are going to be in Havana today for the flag raising dog and pony show in Cuba. The Obama worship runs deep.

I have seen firsthand a variety of experiences where workers united in cooperatives and other forms of community organization were able to create work where there were only crumbs of an idolatrous economy. I have seen some of you here, recuperated businesses, local fairs and cooperatives of paper collectors are examples of that popular economy is born of exclusion and which, slowly, patiently and resolutely adopts solidary forms which dignifies it. How different this is than the situation which results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves.” — Pope Francis, Santa Cruz de la Sierra,...

As usual, the neo-Catholic cover-up of disaster has failed. Pope Francis not only accepted but took home with him the blasphemous depiction of Christ on a hammer and sickle—the very symbol of the massacre of scores of millions of Christians in the name of an ideology whose aim was to wipe Christianity off the face of the earth. As Francis revealed on the flight home during his usual off-the-cuff blabbing to reporters: Reporter on plane: Did you leave it there [in Bolivia]? Pope Francis: No, it’s traveling with me. Of course, Francis never said: “that’s not right” when presented with...