Free Republic

Obama Administration Stiff-Arms Lawmakers Questioning Secret Refugee Deal By Melissa Jacobs Published December 01, 2016. Nearly 2,500 refugees from terrorism hotspots around the world are bound for the U.S. after being rejected by Australia, but not even top lawmakers can get answers about who they are. In an unprecedented move, the U.S. State Department has classified details on refugees to be resettled in America via a secret deal made with Australia. The bi-lateral agreement, which Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull called a “one-off,” involves 2,465 people currently being held in Papua New Guinea and Nauru who will now be transferred...

Nearly 2,500 refugees from terrorism hotspots around the world are bound for the U.S. after being rejected by Australia, but not even top lawmakers can get answers about who they are.

MANDALAY, Myanmar (AP) -- Shunned by Myanmar's new government and its Buddhist hierarchy, a nationalist monk blamed for whipping up at times bloody anti-Muslim fervor said he feels vindicated by U.S. voters who elected Donald Trump to be president. Ashin Wirathu, a high-profile leader of the Myanmar Buddhist organization known as Ma Ba Tha, drew parallels between his views on Islam and those of the Republican president-elect. Trump's campaign was rife with anti-Muslim rhetoric and proposals that included banning Muslims from entering the country and heightening surveillance of mosques. The form his actual policies will take remains unclear.

A new GPS study of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar (Burma) has found startling evidence that the northeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent is actively colliding with Asia, potentially posing a major earthquake risk to one of the world’s most densely populated regions. A new GPS study of Bangladesh, India, and Myanmar (Burma) has found startling evidence that the northeastern corner of the Indian subcontinent is actively colliding with Asia, potentially posing a major earthquake risk to one of the world’s most densely populated regions. The years-long analysis is the first to incorporate GPS data from Bangladeshi tracking stations. It is...

HPAKANT, Myanmar, July 2 (UPI) -- A mob burned down a mosque in northern Myanmar, the second attack in a little more than one week. Several hundred villagers wielding sticks, knives and other weapons raided and burned the structure around 3:30 p.m. Friday, according to the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar state-newspaper. Local authorities and security forces said they tried to disperse the mob but that the mob was unresponsive and entirely beyond control. No arrests were made and an investigation has been launched....

The vast majority of Cretaceous ants belong to stem-group Formicidae and comprise workers and reproductives of largely generalized morphologies... recent discoveries from the Cretaceous suggest relatively advanced social levels. Remarkable exceptions to this pattern of generalized morphologies are ants with bizarre mouthparts in which both female castes have modified heads and bladelike mandibles that uniquely move in a horizontal rather than vertical plane... with the mandibles apparently acting as traps triggered by sensory hairs in a way distinct from that of modern trap-jaw ants... some of the most effective predatory ants are solitary hunters with powerful trap jaws... Dr. WANG...

Emails released by the State Department on Friday show that Hillary Clintons longtime friend Sidney Blumenthal reached out to her on behalf of a former United Kingdom diplomat who was interested in setting up secret channels between insurgents and governments. Clinton was receptive to the idea which came via Blumenthal from Jonathan Powell, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blairs chief of staff. (Quote) Hillary, Jonathan Powell has launched a new NGO that has already initiated some very interesting work below the radar, (Unquote) Blumenthal wrote in the March 18, 2012 email. (Quote)Sid We are trying to replicate what we did...

At the entrance to Thaungtan village there’s a brand new sign, bright yellow, and bearing a message: “No Muslims allowed to stay overnight. No Muslims allowed to rent houses. No marriage with Muslims.” The post was erected in late March by Buddhist residents of the village in Myanmar’s lush Irrawaddy Delta region who signed, or were strong-armed into signing, a document asserting that they wanted to live separately. Since then a couple of other villages across the country have followed suit. Small but viciously insular, these “Buddhist-only” outposts serve as microcosms of the festering religious tensions that threaten Myanmar’s nascent...

The plight of an oppressed people in MyanmarIt was late November—two weeks after the elections—and Nura Din needed to escape the They Key Pyin Internally Displaced Persons Camp. The monsoon season was over—there had been no heavy rain for weeks—and the Bay of Bengal was becoming calm again. The smuggling networks were already rumored to be kicking back into gear: Soon small fishing boats would take members of the escaping Rohingya—a Muslim community in Myanmar, the country formerly known as Burma—out along the Kalaman River, where they’d connect with bigger boats in the bay. Anywhere was better than here. “Wherever...

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi made an anti-Muslim comment about a BBC presenter after being challenged on violence suffered by Burma’s Muslim minority. The Burmese politician, who was once under house arrest for 15 years in her native Burma, made an off-air comment about BBC Today presenter Mishal Husain after losing her temper during an interview where Husain asked her to condemn anti-Islamic sentiment. Following the interview, Suu Kyi was heard to mutter: "No one told me I was going to be interviewed by a Muslim."the 70-year-old president of Myanmar’s National League for Democracy refused to condemn...

BURMA—“Help!” Sahale Eubank, 15, screamed as she clung to a rock with one hand and held onto the reins of a panic-eyed horse with the other. River rapids dragged the poor beast toward jagged rocks. David Eubank, 55, dashed into the icy waters without taking off his socks and hiking boots. Father and daughter splashed, grunted, and pulled until the horse—their main porter for baggage stuffed with medical and educational supplies for impoverished villagers—climbed trembling onto the rock. Eubank, founder of the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), a humanitarian aid group, was on a two-day trek through the Karen State mountains...

As France grapples with the implications of allowing hundreds, possibly thousands of ISIS radicals into its country as immigrants and "refugees" in the wake of last week's massive terror attack on Paris, the Obama administration has continued to cover up the Islamic threads that run through two recent terror attacks on U.S. soil while doubling down on the importation of more Muslim refugees. Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has called a hearing for Thursday morning to examine the Syrian refugee crisis and its impact on national security. At the same time Speaker Paul Ryan is...

Millions of Burmese took to the polls Sunday in an election billed as the country's freest vote in a quarter-century. Victory for [Aung San] Suu Kyi's party, the National League for Democracy, would weaken the power of the military-linked party, which is led by President Thien Sein, a former general. In Yangon, the country's largest city, people lined up at polling stations before sunrise. Pro-democracy supporters are optimistic the election could be the beginning of real change in the country, which has been isolated for decades due to its repressive military-dominated government. While the administration of current President Thein Sein...

Myanmar fisherman finds himself with no country Like more than 2,000 other fishermen rescued following reporting by The Associated Press and a subsequent Indonesian investigation, an 18-year-old named Bing was forced to work on a fishing boat with no way to return to his homeland. Unlike the others, he still can't go back. Abandoned by his parents at a young age, he says he was 12 years old and homeless, begging in the streets of Thailand, when he decided to work on a fishing trawler. He says he worked long hours for no pay. He believes he is Burmese,...

Four leading House Republicans, citing national security concerns, are urging Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner to block the sale of a Wyoming-based uranium mine to an arm of the Russian government's main nuclear agency. The lawmakers are raising alarm over the proposed sale of a Powder River Basin, Wyoming-based uranium processing facility operated by Uranium One USA, a Canadian-based company, to Atomredmetzoloto, a subsidiary of the Russian government agency Rosatom, according to a letter obtained Tuesday by The Washington Times. The sale was first announced on Aug. 31, and the lawmakers claim that it could give Moscow control of up...

President Barack Obama on Thursday ordered his administration to accept at least 10,000 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the United States next year, amid international pressure to act as heartbreaking images emerge of sometimes-deadly attempts to escape to Europe. California is the top resettlement destination, but some likely will come to centers in the Baltimore area, where refugees will be provided with furnished apartments, classes in English and American culture and help finding work. The International Rescue Committee office in Highlandtown, which has helped to resettle 26 Syrian refugees this year, anticipates receiving many more. The agency helps to resettle...

All he did was ask to go home. The last time the Burmese slave made the same request, he was beaten almost to death. But after being gone eight years and forced to work on a boat in faraway Indonesia, Myint Naing was willing to risk everything to see his mother again. His nights were filled with dreams of her, and time was slowly stealing her face from his memory. So he threw himself on the ground and roped his arms around the captain’s legs to beg for freedom. The Thai skipper barked loud enough for all to hear that...

Jay Ro and his wife, Ca Na, were in their kitchen early Thursday morning, preparing a traditional Burmese breakfast. He was peeling garlic, she was washing dishes. Then their 11-year-old son, Thee Ku Moo, walked into the room — with a stranger, holding a gun against the boy's neck. While attempting to get his son out of danger, Jay Ro, 48, was shot dead by the armed robber, who fled the family's home near N. 30th and W. Cherry streets in Milwaukee. A language barrier, fear and bad luck converged that day; the family had spent years in a refugee...

The Indian Army on Tuesday conducted a cross-border revenge attack in Myanmar by killing nearly a dozen militants said to be involved in the massacre of 18 soldiers last week in Manipur's Chandel district Reports said the strike was done in coordination with the Myanmar regime after the clearance to conduct the surgical strikes were given at the highest level in the government. "Any threat to safety, security and national integrity will meet with a similar response," an Army spokesman said. However, a report in the Economic Times claimed India will not admit to carrying out the rare cross-border operation....

He's been described as the "Buddhist Bin Laden," but Ashin Wirathu thinks he has more in common with the world's most famous fictional spy. "James Bond is a nationalist," the cherub-faced monk said in a recent interview. Flashing a smile, he offered a vague recollection of a movie in which 007, in order to extract information from a woman, took her to bed. "While he did not take much pleasure in the act," Wirathu said, "he did it for his country." His questionable reading of Bond aside, the firebrand Wirathu firmly says he is defending Myanmar against the people he...