Free Republic

President Joe Biden wants to concentrate on domestic affairs, but the world won’t stop. There’s political unrest in the former Soviet Union. A coup in Burma. More repression in Hong Kong. Vaccine chaos in Europe. Warring governments in Libya. Barriers to reinstating the nuclear agreement with Iran. Continuing war in Yemen. The specter of a rising China.

Many signs pointed to an inevitable conclusion that Myanmar's so-called transition to a democracy was a farce. Nevertheless, Obama embraced it wholeheartedly.The small South East Asian nation Myanmar became headline news last week after its military staged a coup, seizing power after detaining the country’s de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi and other democratically elected political leaders.Only a decade ago, Myanmar’s transition from military dictatorship to democracy was celebrated as one of President Obama’s foreign policy accomplishments. Now, the small nation is President Joe Biden’s first foreign policy nightmare.A Proxy For PowerMyanmar, also known as Burma, is a country...

China has been warning since the coup that sanctions or international pressure would only make things worse in Myanmar. Beijing has long played a role of protecting the country from international scrutiny. It sees the country as economically important and is one of Myanmar's closest allies. Alongside Russia, it has repeatedly protected Myanmar from criticism at the UN over the military crackdown on the Muslim minority Rohingya population.

The State Department is warning of the potential for "civil and political unrest in Burma" following the dramatic military takeover of the country and arrest of its civilian leadership Monday. This as all international travel has been halted, and various communications including internet were cut to the capital. The Biden administration has now formally declared it as a coup d'état, which means Washington is required by law to cut off all foreign assistance to the southeast Asian country. It further announced that targeted action will be taken "against those responsible" for the arrests and continued detention of the elected civilian...

Why is the military taking control in Burma? The coup follows days of tensions between the civilian government and military Problem: The military drafted the constitution in 2008 and retains power under the charter at the expense of democratic, civilian rule. Human Rights Watch has described the clause as a "coup mechanism in waiting." The constitution also reserves key Cabinet ministries and 25% of the seats in Parliament for the military, a portion that limits the power of a civilian government and rules out amending the charter without military support.

False narratives about the holding of Grace Meyer against her will at the Salmon Creek Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington Friday with allegations that her daughter refused to enter the hospital without a mask. The Clark County, Washington Sheriff's Department claiming that the people supporting Grace Meyer outside the hospital were heavily armed and wearing gas masks. There is no evidence of that on videos of the situation as it unfolded Friday evening... Another day of protests in Russia supporting the jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny... Its Monday in Myanmar(Burma) where the military has again taken power after almost a...

The military, known as the Tatmadaw, charged that there was massive voting fraud in the election, though it has failed to provide proof. The state Union Election Commission last week rejected its allegations. Amid the bickering over the allegations, the military last Tuesday ramped up political tension when a spokesman at its weekly news conference, responding to a reporter’s question, declined to rule out the possibility of a coup. Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun elaborated by saying the military would “follow the laws in accordance with the constitution.” Using similar language, Commander-in-Chief Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing told senior officers...

@RudyGiuliani : A meeting is coming out in 1-2 days in State Dept. in which Hunter snuck in the back door ... That meeting took place with Tony Blinken."

First tonight a quick analysis of the political situation. There are still legal challenges and still vote counts underway in a number of states with recounts set to begin in others in the coming days. States have not certified the Presidential candidate who won yet. This weekend in the Newsdump period specifically late Saturday morning voted were produced in Pennsylvania to lead both the mainstream media and former Vice-President Joe Biden to proclaim victory with foreign leaders nd former presidents reinforcing the notion along with corporate CEO's... Former Republican President George W. Bush offer his congratulations to Joe Biden and...

The Maldives government is now alarmed at the amount of debt it owes to China. With the coronavirus pandemic, the tourism-dependent islands are now finding it difficult to repay the Chinese debt that the previous government took. India and China have been trying to gain clout in the region. Under Former President Abdullah Yameen’s government, China invested millions of dollars in infrastructure projects under Chinese President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). However, in 2018 Yameen faced election defeat. In an interview with BBC, the current Speaker of Parliament Mohamed Nasheed said that the Chinese debt amounts to...

‘Assault’: Asian cardinal denounces Muslim resumed takeover of Catholic cathedral Hagia Sophia Cardinal Charles Bo said that ‘turning what was once the world’s largest cathedral into a mosque’ will ‘sow tensions, divide people and inflict pain.’ YANGON, Myanmar, July 24, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic cardinal who is the leader of the Asian bishops has strongly condemned the move of the Turkish government to allow the former Catholic cathedral Hagia Sophia, once the most important church in Eastern Christianity, to be turned back into a mosque. Cardinal Charles Bo said that not only does the move “grieve” him, but he...

A three-judge federal appeals court said Tuesday the DOJ’s settlement with Fokker Services B.V. for alleged sanctions violations could go ahead after a district court judge rejected the arrangement as “anemic.” The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC said prosecutors and not judges make decisions to enter into deferred prosecution agreement with corporate defendants. In February 2015, federal district court judge Richard Leon refused to approve the settlement. He said the proposed $21 million penalty was “grossly disproportionate to the gravity of Fokker Sercvices’ conduct in a post-911 world.” Holland-based Fokker Services admitted in a 2014 plea deal that...

Rome, Italy, Apr 2, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- Poor countries are suffering from the coronavirus because of the Chinese Communist Party’s negligence and repression, a cardinal from Burma said Thursday. “The Chinese regime led by the all-powerful Xi Jinping and the CCP — not its people — owes us all an apology and compensation for the destruction it has caused,” Cardinal Muang Bo, Archbishop of Yangon, wrote in an op-ed published April 2 by UCA News. Cardinal Bo, who is head of the Federation of Asian Bishops’ Conferences, denounced the Chinese regime Thursday for withholding information about the coronavirus...

With violent confrontations on the rise, there is an increasing fear of the radicalization of Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh. A recent accusation from Indian intelligence points the finger at its Pakistani counterparts.Last Saturday, in the hilly jungles near the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh’s Cox’s Bazar district, police forces were involved in a gunfight with a criminal gang. Local news sources reported that the police rescued three Rohingya who were kidnapped and held for ransom. Earlier that week, a clash between two armed groups in the camps injured 14 Rohingya refugees. “There were two groups,” Mohammad Kashem, one of the...

Long before the coronavirus made international headlines, China’s Communist Party, which rules the country with unchallenged authority, had an image problem. Image has always been a key element of Beijing’s plan to rise to global greatness. It has worked assiduously to carve a reputation as an unstoppable power wading well into the midst of world affairs. Today, however, that carefully crafted image is badly tattered. It’s worse than it was just one year ago when nations that eagerly participated in China’s Belt and Road Initiative began to realize that Chinese “aid” was a two-edged sword. No one has done more...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was one of a number of top Democrats to rip into President Trump’s decision to expand the travel ban to include six more countries on Friday -- with Pelosi describing it as “discrimination disguised as policy.” “The Trump administration’s expansion of its outrageous, un-American travel ban threatens our security, our values and the rule of law," she said in a statement. "The sweeping rule, barring more than 350 million individuals from predominantly African nations from traveling to the United States, is discrimination disguised as policy." [cut] The initial seven countries have restrictions on both immigrant and...

The six countries being added to the list are Burma, Eritrea, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Tanzania and Sudan. Those are added to the current seven included in the ban: Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The UN’s top court ruled on Thursday that the Rohingya face a “real and ongoing” threat of genocide in Myanmar, and emergency provisional measures should be implemented to protect the Rohingya inside the country. The provisional measures should be implemented to protect the Muslim Rohingya minority in Myanmar during the next stage of the hearing, said the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court also ruled that it has jurisdiction over the genocide case and the next stage of the hearing can go ahead. The Gambia brought the case to the ICJ on behalf of an organization of Muslim nations,...

The supporters of the Second Amendment and the Antifa expected to be in Richmond, Virginia tomorrow with the Second Amendment groups protesting new laws and Antifa ready to act violently. As the FBI moved to arrest alleged Neo-Nazis headed for the rally in recent days, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam declared a state of emergency and imposed a weapons ban..... World leaders are described as "fully committed" to a peaceful resolution of the Libyan conflict.... A mass rally in Hong Kong today by pro-democracy demonstrators..... "a dangerous attack on the right of the American people to freely choose their president" Part...

The spectacle of Aung San Suu Kyi, a once-persecuted Nobel peace laureate now defending her country against allegations of genocide over its treatment of the Rohingya minority, has been one of bewildering irony. In the years after she was released from house arrest in 2010, princes, presidents and prime ministers welcomed Aung San Suu Kyi with open arms into their own opulent homes. The feel-good factor of rubbing shoulders with someone who had dedicated much of her adult life to the pursuit of democracy was irresistible. Then, the grandeur of the Peace Palace in The Hague - a marble-floored monument...