Free Republic

A widening investigation into allegations of high-level corruption on the island of Malta, first levelled by murdered journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, stretches to China and a $400 million investment into Europe by a Chinese state power company, Reuters has found. Caruana Galizia was murdered in October 2017 as she investigated a web of companies that she believed were funneling bribes to Maltese politicians. Now, Reuters and a consortium of journalists have traced two firms involved in that web to relatives of a senior Chinese executive for Accenture, the global consultancy firm. The executive, 43-year-old Chen Cheng from Shanghai, negotiated investments...

The UK Government has agreed a deal with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on the manufacture of up to 60 million doses of the Novavax coronavirus vaccine. The vaccine has one big advantage over the others currently being used. While the jabs from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna need to be kept at ultra-low temperatures, the Novavax jab is stable for up to three months in a normal fridge. However, the it has not yet been approved by the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency). While trials did not study the effectiveness of the vaccine when separating the doses between the jab...

David McGee, an attorney with Beggs & Lane, is the man the Florida Republican named during an appearance Tuesday evening on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show in which he responded to reports that he is under federal investigation over a former relationship. McGee served for six years as the first assistant at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and for seven years as the lead attorney for a Justice Department's Organized Crime Task Force, according to his biography on the website of his law firm, which is based in Pensacola, Florida. (Cut) The New York Times reported Gaetz, 38, is being looked...

TOKYO—Japan and Indonesia pledged on Tuesday to tighten security ties and signed a deal to facilitate transfers of defense equipment and technology, as their near neighbor China expands its economic and military might. China’s territorial claims in the East and South China seas have become a priority issue in an increasingly testy Sino-U.S. relationship and also raise significant security concerns for Japan. “I think this is (a) historical first in bilateral relations between Japan and Indonesia,” Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto said, referring to the transfer pact. “We invite the Japanese side to participate in the modernization of Indonesia’s defense...

The United States on Tuesday joined more than a dozen other nations to express shared concerns about a World Health Organization study into the origins of the CCP virus, pointing to the report’s delay and lack of access to crucial data. “Together, we support a transparent and independent analysis and evaluation, free from interference and undue influence, of the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic,” reads the statement signed by the governments of Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Israel, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, South Korea, Slovenia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. “In this regard, we join in...

* Illegal migrants said they’re coming to the U.S. because of President Joe Biden, natural disasters and violence in their home countries. * A landowner where migrants frequently cross on their way to a processing facility said they tell him they’re here because Biden invited them. * Some of the migrants said they did not want to leave their countries but had to because of corruption and a lack of opportunity. RINCON VILLAGE, TEXAS—Illegal migrants are crossing through private land seeking asylum in the U.S. for a number of reasons including Joe Biden’s presidency and factors such as violence and...

In Kelly v. Montana Department of Transportation, (D MT, March 23, 2021), a Montana federal district court adopted a magistrate's recommendations, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 55046 (D MT, March 9, 2021). The magistrate recommended dismissing 1st Amendment objections to the removal of a "spiritual cross" that plaintiff had erected along side of a highway in memory of his stepson. Rejecting free speech claims, the magistrate held that "a spiritual cross erected on public land adjacent to a highway constitutes government speech." Rejecting free exercise claims, the magistrate said in part: Kelly does not allege that the Defendants prohibited him from...

Data was withheld from World Health Organization investigators who travelled to China to research the origins of the coronavirus epidemic, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday (Mar 30). The United States, the European Union and other Western countries immediately called for China to give "full access" to independent experts to all data about the original outbreak in late 2019. In its final report, written jointly with Chinese scientists, a WHO-led team that spent four weeks in and around Wuhan in January and February said the virus had probably been transmitted from bats to humans through another animal, and...

Washington D.C., Mar 29, 2021 / 03:51 pm MT (CNA).- The percentage of Catholics who say they are a “member” of a church has dropped by nearly 20 points since the year 2000, according to a new report by Gallup released on Monday. Among respondents who said they were Catholic, only 58% actually said they were a member of a church. This figure is down 18 points from the 76% of Catholics who said they were a member of the Church, in a previous Gallup survey from 1998-2000. In the past decade, Catholics saw a twice-as-steep decline in members than...

At best it is experienced as cold and distant, at worst hurtful and offensive,’ says Bishop of Achonry Paul DempseyIreland’s youngest Catholic bishop has expressed regret at language used in a recent Vatican document banning blessings for same-sex couples. Earlier this month the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Pope Francis, said “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex.” Bishop of Achonry Paul Dempsey (49), in a statement released through the Catholic Communications Office on Friday evening, said of the language in...

North Carolina residents have come together to increase the reward money for information leading to the arrest of a man who shot a Lancaster woman in a road rage incident last week. The Robeson County Sheriff’s Office said in the days since the shooting, one resident came forward anonymously offering $10,000 as a reward and more people have come forward to help raise that amount since, now at $20,000. The man in question is accused of driving alongside the car of Lancaster couple Ryan and Julie Eberly were in on Interested 95 near Lumberton around 11:40 a.m. on March 25,...

ROME (AP) — A British judge has blasted Vatican prosecutors for making “appalling” misrepresentations to the court about their investigation into the Holy See’s investment in a London real estate deal, determining they don’t have much of a case against their key suspect. In a remarkable ruling made public this week, Judge Tony Baumgartner of Southwark Crown Court reversed another judge’s decision to seize the British-based bank accounts of broker Gianluigi Torzi and awarded Torzi legal fees. The Vatican had requested the seizure as part of its corruption investigation into Torzi and other suspects whom prosecutors accuse of fleecing the...

We have reported extensively over the last month on the growing crisis at our southern border. President Biden’s policies and soft talk have invited a massive wave of immigrants and many of them are unaccompanied minors. The influx has caused border facilities to become overflowed, many of them far beyond capacity and with little ability to properly care for the kids. Biden has struggled to deal with the migrant crisis. With border facilities completely filled, it was revealed last week that he would begin flying immigrants to other states for housing. We had no idea exactly where they would be...

“I don’t know if I can put into words what Master John has done for me. What do you say to someone who has given you your life back. Who cures the incurable. Who gives and gives so gracefully. Who has time and time again blessed my life with miracles I can barely comprehend.” - McKayla Maroney, January 2019 (post now removed from social media)“Our group and my elites have seen proof of God. And have seen the reality of God, and have seen the evidence of God and have seen the scientific proof of God. It’s no longer a...

~ Freeper Canteen ~Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allies' military and family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. Today We Want You To Take The.....U S History QuizClick HERE to take the quiz!Have Fun!! Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly!

On Monday afternoon, Carrie Feit paced the sidewalk along the perimeter of a sprawling federallyowned complex across the street from an air force base in Homestead, Florida. It’s been more than a year since the property was last used to detain more than 2,000 immigrant children who crossed the border without an adult or who had been separated from their family members. The site was shut down during the Trump era amid an avalanche of scandals, including allegations of sex abuse involving the kids housed there. But as talk of a “surge” of migrants at the border has picked up...

The Bangsamoro Sultanate of Lanao, headed by Sultan Edrieza Nasser Rimbang Al-Haj, a parliament member of the Bangsamoro Transition Authority (BTA), has recognized and confirmed the Maranao lineage of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. This confirmation comes after Rimbang Al-Haj made a series of consultations among the council of elders and sultan representatives from the Pat a Pangampong sa Ranao as well as the Igma and Taritib of the Maranaos. Rimbang Al-Haj said the announcement of the confirmation of Duterte’s Maranao blood lineage coincided with the President’s natal day celebration on March 27. The sultan’s wife is a distant relative of...

An Italian mafia fugitive who has been evading police since 2014 was arrested last week after police recognized him on YouTube. Marc Feren Claude Biart, who is wanted by police for allegedly trafficking cocaine, had started a cooking show on YouTube with his wife, BBC News reports. 53-year-old Biart hid his face in the videos – but did not hide his tattoos. Italian police saw the videos and arrested Biart in the small town of Boca Chica, Dominican Republic, they said in a statement, according to BBC News. Biart has been wanted by police for nearly six years for allegedly...

Former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers continues to blast the Biden administration’s stimulus plan and warns it will result in a major inflation crisis. “We’re taking substantial risks,” Summers told The Washington Post. “This might not have struck as much a nerve if it didn’t reflect concerns that were widely felt.” “I know the bathtub has been too empty,” he continued. “But one has to think about what the capacity of the bathtub is and how much water we’re trying to flow into it.”

Explanation: What are those red filaments in the sky? They are a rarely seen form of lightning confirmed only about 30 years ago: red sprites. Recent research has shown that following a powerful positive cloud-to-ground lightning strike, red sprites may start as 100-meter balls of ionized air that shoot down from about 80-km high at 10 percent the speed of light. They are quickly followed by a group of upward streaking ionized balls. The featured image was taken earlier this year from Las Campanas observatory in Chile over the Andes Mountains in Argentina. Red sprites take only a fraction of...