Free Republic

President Obama will depart Monday on his final foreign trip of his presidency — and the main topic of the three-country tour is expected to be President-elect Donald Trump. “We certainly expect that the election will be the primary topic on people’s minds everywhere we go,” deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters, the Wall Street Journal reported. The president will travel to Athens on Monday, then to Berlin on Wednesday and finally Lima, Peru, on Friday. He’s expected to return to Washington, DC, on Sunday. In addition to meeting Greek and German leaders, Obama will meet with President...

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.

George Washington University researcher has identified a 6,200-year-old indigo-blue fabric from Huaca, Peru, making it one of the oldest-known cotton textiles in the world and the oldest known textile decorated with indigo blue. Credit: Lauren Urana The discovery marks the earliest use of indigo as a dye, a technically challenging color to produce. According to Jeffrey Splitstoser, lead author of a paper on the discovery and assistant research professor of anthropology at the George Washington University, the finding speaks to the sophisticated textile technology ancient Andean people developed 6,200 years ago. "Some of the world's most significant technological achievements were...

''People will understand that we are serious about going after government corruption,'' he added. ``There is a very selfish reason for this: We end up paying for the bill when these people steal the money, because we have to provide aid, or accept the citizens as refugees or as migrants.'' The Bush administration says it is about to unveil a new weapon to help fight corruption in Latin America: a list of corrupt government officials from the region who will be denied entry visas to the United States. The anti-corruption drive is being led by Otto J. Reich, the...

"My living creatures surround you for you have arrived " I AM The Guardian of your life , Nothing exists or is unseen, For I AM The eyes of those that believe, In and through all things I created to be, I AM The Author of all that you see, And of the invisible I make myself known, I AM The Author of existence That turns over every stone, So nothing I say nothing surprises Me, As far as the east is from the west and beyond I see, So rest your wholeness in My fullness for this is where...

LIMA, Peru – Peru's new interior minister says there is strong evidence that police officers ran death squads in 2011-2015 and prosecutors are investigating. Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio's comments were published in a newspaper interview confirmed by his press office. He took office July 28. The newspaper La Republica first published the allegations four days earlier. Peruvian news outlets say more than 90 police officers ranking as high as colonel are alleged to have been involved.

The elongated skulls of Paracas in Peru caused a stir in 2014 when a geneticist that carried out preliminary DNA testing reported that they have mitochondrial DNA “with mutations unknown in any human, primate, or animal known so far”. Now a second round of DNA testing has been completed and the results are just as controversial – the skulls tested, which date back as far as 2,000 years, were shown to have European and Middle Eastern Origin. These surprising results change the known history about how the Americas were populated. Paracas is a desert peninsula located within Pisco Province on...

Alejandrina Elsa Quispe Ramirez had allegedly told authorities she was traveling to Shriners Hospital for Children in Boston, so that her son could be treated for burn wounds. But what she had planned, according to the Secret Service, was actually something sinister. A tip had come from the Peruvian National Police: A woman and her two sons would be traveling to the United States on July 11 carrying a significant amount of US dollars in their luggage, concealed in thread cones, the type of string or yarn spindles used in sewing machines. The Secret Service had recently seized counterfeit US...

Today I went to a Peruvian restaurant and had my absolute favorite soup of all time. Parihuela. You can see the soup I had in the pic below. It is composed of shrimp, clams, mussels, prawn, crab, calamari, octopus, and special chilis. The liquid is a reddish color. The bowl I had was very large and had enough seafood in it to make a complete meal.

Nations around the world reject its eco-terrorism tactics. Governments and courts around the world are finally cracking down on the eco-terrorist organization Greenpeace. The crackdown, which is long overdue, couldn’t happen to a more misguided bunch of people. In early December 2014, more than 20 Greenpeace activists damaged a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of a publicity stunt meant to motivate greater government support for renewable-energy sources they think are necessary to battle supposed human-caused climate change. The activists walked into a “strictly prohibited” area where the Nazca Lines are located in Peru and laid big, yellow cloth letters...

Partial results in Peru's presidential election have given former World Bank executive Pedro Pablo Kuczynski a narrow lead. He had 50.52% against 49.48% for Keiko Fujimori, with 88% of votes counted.

Partial results in Peru's presidential election give former World Bank executive Pedro Pablo Kuczynski a narrow lead. He had 50.59% against 49.41% for Keiko Fujimori, with 52% of the votes counted. Ms. Fujimori had a strong lead ahead of the vote on Sunday but corruption scandals in her Popular Force party may have dented her support. She is the daughter of Peru's former President Alberto Fujimori.......

The most recent Miss Peru Universe photo-shoot took a very interesting turn of events. During the photo-shoot, as Miss Peru Universe, Valeria Piazza, was transitioning to another spot along the rocks on the banks of the Shilcayo River in Tarapoto, San Martín, she looked down and noticed a severed, rotting leg. Once she realized what she had seen she left terrified and the production crew temporarily suspended the shoot. Upon recognizing the gravity of their findings, the team contacted local authorities that requested the presence of a member of the public ministry. Following the standard procedures the leg was transferred...

Researchers Have Finally Solved The Mystery Of The Irish Potato Famine Denise Chow, LiveScience May 24, 2013, 12:03 PM The Irish potato famine that caused mass starvation and approximately 1 million deaths in the mid-19th century was triggered by a newly identified strain of potato blight that has been christened "HERB-1," according to a new study. An international team of molecular biologists studied the historical spread of Phytophthora infestans, a funguslike organism that devastated potato crops and led to the famine in Ireland. The precise strain of the pathogen that caused the devastating outbreak, which lasted from 1845 to 1852,...

One year after resigning in disgrace, Aaron Schock — the high-flying GOP congressman whose penchant for drawing publicity to himself was nearly unrivaled in the House of Representatives — has largely disappeared from view. But federal prosecutors still have their sights on him. There have been a few random glimpses of the Illinois Republican since his abrupt departure from Capitol Hill: having dinner with his father in Peru last summer, and snowboarding with a friend in Aspen, Colorado, in February. Just this month, Schock was seen lugging his gym bag outside the Longworth House Office Building. Sources say he is...

In one of the most arid regions in the world a series of carefully constructed, spiralling holes form lines across the landscape. Known as puquios, their origin has been a puzzle -- one that could only be solved from space. The holes are from the Nasca region of Peru -- an area famous for the Nasca lines, several enormous geometric images carved into the landscape; immaculate archaeological evidence of ceremonial burials; and the rapid decline of this once flourishing society. What adds to the intrigue in the native ancient people of Nasca is how they were able to survive in...

American researcher David Johnson has advanced a theory that Nasca Lines may be related to water. He thinks that the geoglyphs may be a giant map of the underground water sources traced on the land. The Nasca Lines are located in the Peruvian desert, about 200 miles south of Lima. The assortment of perfectly-straight lines lies in an area measuring 37 miles long and 1-mile wide... While looking for sources of water, he noticed that ancient aqueducts, called puquios, seemed to be connected with some of the lines... Johnson gave each figure a meaning: the trapezoids always point to a...

Researchers captured images of the short-eared dog in Puno's jungle regions. For the first time in Peru's history, researchers in the jungles of Puno captured images of an animal that they had long thought to be extinct: the short-eared dog. Also known as the small-eared fox, or Atelocynus microtis, the animal was photographed by camera traps in the Bahuaja Sonene National Park in the Puno jungle, Southern Peru, reports El Comercio. The animal's presence had not been detected in the Peruvian Amazon since 1987 and has been on the red list of threatened species of the International Union of Conservation...

Centre-right candidate Keiko Fujimori has won the first round of Peru's presidential election, exit polls say. Ms. Fujimori, who won about 40% of the vote, will face one of two challengers in a run-off vote in June. Her rivals, centrist Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and leftist Veronika Mendoza are neck and neck with about 20% of the vote each, exit polls said. Ms. Fujimori, the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, says tacking crime is her priority. She is also supported by some Peruvians who credit her father with defeating the Maoist Shining Path rebel group. Suspected leftist rebels killed three...

Peruvian natural resource managers have questions about how to protect their country’s forests, and they came to Summit County for answers. A U.S. Forest Service division called International Programs, which promotes sustainable forest management and biodiversity conservation in foreign countries, brought top-level Peruvian officials for an educational tour that started Monday in Washington D.C. and ends Friday in Denver. ... In 2009, a U.S-Peru free trade agreement stipulated that Peru must curtail illegal logging, which undercuts the U.S. timber sector, and sustainably manage natural resources, said Erin Carey, who worked with the Forest Service International Programs for the last five...