Free Republic

On Sunday, a strong shortwave radio blackout occurred over southeast Asia and Australia due to a solar flare hurled from the sun. Seems like Solar activity is again picking up pace after a geomagnetic storm hit earth. It is interrupted that the sun is likely to erupt with more flares this week. The X1 class flare was accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from a cluster of active sunspots that have produced significant flaring prior to appearing on the eastern limb of the sun. CMEs are huge bubbles of radiation and particles from the sun. They explode into space...

Cambodia continued construction work at its Ream naval base in August and September, advancing projects that the US suspects could support a Chinese military presence in a strategically valuable corner of Southeast Asia. Satellite photos taken by Maxar and Planet Labs and published by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative show that two new buildings were built on the north end of the base... ... work took place near the former site of the Tactical Headquarters of the National Committee for Maritime Security, a US-funded building that was officially opened in 2012 and unexpectedly demolished in September 2020...

The 1,035-kilometer (642-mile) line opens this week to cargo but no regular passengers due to anti-pandemic travel curbs. Poor countries welcome China’s initiative. But the projects are financed by loans from Chinese state-owned banks that must be repaid. Some borrowers complain Chinese-built projects are too expensive and leave too much debt. Laotian leaders hope the railway will energize their isolated economy by linking it to China and markets as far away as Europe. But foreign experts say the potential benefits to Laos beyond serving as a channel for Chinese trade are unclear and the cost appears dangerously high.

A kilometer-size asteroid slammed into Earth about 800,000 years ago with so much force that it scattered debris across a 10th of our planet's surface. Yet its impact crater remains undiscovered. Now, glassy remains believed to have come from the strike suggest the asteroid hit southeast Asia as our close ancestors walked the Earth... Aaron Cavosie, an astrobiologist and geochemist at Curtin University in Perth, Australia, and his colleagues examined the chemical composition of three tektites from Thailand. They searched for evidence of reidite, a rare mineral formed only by extreme pressures and temperatures, like those of an asteroid impact....

WHEN Pastor Jimmy Parade took over at Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Church in Bandung, on the island of Java, five years ago, around 180 people came to services each week. Now the church—in a nondescript building in an outdoor shopping complex—is packed with around 450 each Sunday. “People keep coming,” Mr Parade shrugs. Some 1,000 miles away, up several sets of escalators at a shopping mall in Singapore, thousands of people take part in a two-hour service on a Saturday evening at the City Harvest Church, which has a weekly attendance of just under 16,000. The service involves a rock...

BANGKOK: A Vietnamese ‘crocodile lizard’ and a Thai turtle found on sale in a local market are among more than 100 new species discovered in the ecologically diverse but threatened Mekong region last year, researchers said. The Southeast Asian countries flanking the Mekong river, which snakes down from the Tibetan plateau to the South China Sea, are among the most biodiverse in the world. Each year scientists announce scores of new species discovered in the region, which includes Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. But there are fears that many more species could die out before they are found in...

I have been a minor participant on FR since 2004, but this is the first time I have ever started a thread. For the past eight months I have recorded a podcast on Southeast Asian history, and I thought some other Freepers would be interested in hearing it, especially when I cover twentieth century events like World War II and the Vietnam War. Although the podcast is hosted on Blubrry.com, you can also access it from iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and four other websites. As of March 2017, I have seventeen episodes online, and because I have been going in...

slamists misquoted a September speech in which Mr. Purnama cited the Quran and started a social-media campaign against him. He has since apologized, and a police investigation is expected to clear him. But the accusation led to Friday’s rally, at which participants openly incited violence against the Governor. Some protesters burned cars and looted shops. Mr. Purnama, who has been the target of assassination plots in the past, is running for re-election in February. His chances are good since he remains popular with Jakarta’s population, especially the middle class. Originally Deputy Governor, he took over when his predecessor, Joko Widodo,...

Are we so blinded by propaganda, lies by Muslim leaders, and political correctness perpetrated by the liberal left that we cannot recognize Islamic terrorism when it slaps us in the face? This article is simply the offspring of observation, and speculation regarding those observations. The AirAsia flight that recently vanished, without a word, was being flown by Captain Iriyanto, a devout and active Muslim (and his co-pilot was a Muslim-French National). The pilot of the Malaysian flight that vanished without a word was also a devout Muslim, as was his co-pilot. Both were experienced flyers, and experts found it to...

A new defense paper published by Japan’s government today urges Tokyo to set up a rapid marine deployment force to counter threats to its territory and acquire offensive weapons, like surveillance drones and missiles that could strike enemy bases. Shinzo Abe’s government is clearly trucking on with plans to revamp Japan’s military and even considering changing the pacifist constitution, under which some of these new capabilities are questionable. The paper pushes the limits of Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which states, “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use...

An increasingly fractious maritime confrontation is developing in the South China Sea, with enormous implications for international companies interested in developing East Asia’s offshore hydrocarbon resources. Far from the radars of city of London and Wall Street investors, the clash has seen Vietnam emerge as spear carrier for its fellow ASEAN members on the dispute. Offshore drilling is the most capital-intensive form of exploiting hydrocarbons, but its expense and scarcity has also allowed technically advanced Western companies to drive hard bargains with third world countries over their offshore waters, as they don’t have indigenous advanced technical resources nor finances to...

This week deadly armed clashes near Burma’s border with China ended a nearly two-decade-old ceasefire between the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and Burma’s government. About 10,000 people have fled to refugee camps along the Chinese border and 215 Chinese workers from the Datang United Hydropower Developing Co. returned home after the KIA captured a Chinese-built and operated hydropower plant last week. A KIA spokesperson told the Thailand-based Irrawaddy that the uprising began when the government reneged on an agreement to share electricity generated from the region’s Chinese-built hydropower plants with local people. “This electricity is now going to China, not...

Weeks after a story shot across the Web claiming that the imminent explosion of a nearby star would result in the appearance of a second sun in the sky — a story that was later debunked — two suns were caught on camera yesterday in China. The suns — one fuzzy and orange, the other a crisp yellow orb — appeared side-by-side, one slightly higher than the other. What's going on? Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to Space.com, asked Jim Kaler, the University of Illinois astronomer who squelched the excitement over the aforementioned exploding Betelgeuse and who has written...

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Teo Chee Hean officiated at the inauguration ceremony of 149 Squadron, the Republic of Singapore Air Force's (RSAF's) first local F-15SG Squadron, at Paya Lebar Air Base this afternoon. The F-15SG Squadron will join the fighter group under the Air Combat Command, which plans, controls and executes air warfare operations. This marks a significant milestone in the 3rd Generation RSAF's development of its advanced fighter capabilities. Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Mr Teo highlighted the crucial role that the F-15SG squadron will play in enhancing the Singapore Armed Forces' (SAF's) ability to deal...

Singapore is reported to be acquiring Israel's new Iron Dome anti-missile air-defense system under a once-secret military cooperation pact with the Jewish state that dates to the 1960s. Indeed, according to the Paris Intelligence Online Web site, Singapore helped finance the development of the system by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. It says that Iron Dome was always intended for the island, a key Asian shipping hub and one of the richest per capita states in the world, because of its strategic location as a trading center. The Israeli air force, which runs the Jewish state's air defense network, completed test-firings...

China's arms purchases fuel fears of clashes By Kathrin Hille in Beijing and Tim Johnston in Bangkok Published: March 14 2010 19:12 | Last updated: March 14 2010 21:58 Military analysts are warning that China’s increased regional power has caused its south-east Asian neighbours to step up their own defence purchases, raising the prospect that territorial disputes in the South China Sea could turn violent. Siemon Wezeman, a senior fellow at the arms transfers programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), said that several south-east Asian countries had “dramatically” stepped up their purchases of submarines, fighter aircraft, and...

Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) Chief Admiral Abdul Aziz Jaafar has confirmed that the nation's first submarine, KD Tunku Abdul Rahman, was experiencing a mechanical fault which prevented it from submerging. He said the fault was detected on Jan 17, following maintenance works conducted at the RMN base in Teluk Sepanggar, Sabah. "The damage involves a part that channels water pressure movement which caused the submarine's failure to launch underwater," he told reporters after a ceremony where appointment letters were presented to members of the National Service Training Council here Thursday. Abdul Aziz was commenting on a local English daily on...

The Bush Administration did a great deal for U.S. relations with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It developed the ASEAN Cooperation Plan, the Enterprise for ASEAN Initiative, the ASEAN-U.S. Enhanced Partnership, and the U.S.-ASEAN Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement. The Bush Administration also opened free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations with Malaysia and Thailand and saw to successful conclusion a comprehensive U.S.-Singapore FTA that has resulted in a 73 percent increase in U.S. exports to Singapore. And it was President Bush who appointed the first ever U.S. Ambassador to ASEAN. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration's public diplomacy was not as...

The death of Pol Pot, 23 years to the day after he and the Khmer Rouge seized control of Cambodia, occasioned long backward glances at one of the 20th century's most horrific genocides. It was noted everywhere that the communist reign of terror in Cambodia lasted nearly four years and that at least 1 million human beings -- by some estimates as many as 2 1/2 million -- were murdered in an orgy of executions, torture, and starvation. "In the name of a radical utopia," The New York Times recalled in its long obituary, "the Khmer Rouge regime had turned...

June 14, 2009Obama's Other Controversial ChurchBy Andrew Walden "This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008 As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather...