Free Republic

Three years ago, the most powerful political families in the Philippines joined hands to secure the nation’s biggest election victory in four decades. Now they are locked in a feud that threatens to derail one of Asia’s economic growth stars. In dramatic events on Tuesday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s government arrested and deported his predecessor Rodrigo Duterte to face the International Criminal Court in The Hague. The move came just over a month after the impeachment of his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, by allies of Marcos. A Senate trial, which would determine whether she gets removed from office,...

TUGUEGARAO CITY, CAGAYAN, Philippines — Two Cagayan Valley lawmakers have filed separate resolutions asking the appropriate committee of the House of Representatives to look into the reported surge of Chinese students in colleges and universities in this city amid the country’s tension with China over the West Philippine Sea. Representatives Joseph Lara of Cagayan’s third district and Faustino “Inno” Dy V of Isabela’s sixth district said the presence of large numbers of Chinese nationals in this region and other parts of the country pose a risk to the country’s national security and economy, particularly since these foreigners had been involved...

...Results: For 2020, NVDRS collected information on 64,388 fatal incidents involving 66,017 deaths that occurred in 48 states (46 states collecting statewide data, 35 California counties, and four Texas counties), and the District of Columbia. In addition, information was collected for 729 fatal incidents involving 790 deaths in Puerto Rico. Data for Puerto Rico were analyzed separately. Of the 66,017 deaths, the majority (58.4%) were suicides, followed by homicides (31.3%), deaths of undetermined intent (8.2%), legal intervention deaths (1.3%) (i.e., deaths caused by law enforcement and other persons with legal authority to use deadly force acting in the line of...

Policymakers have long grappled with how to handle experiments that might generate potentially dangerous viruses. Now, officials are considering whether oversight needs to be expanded. Over 150 virologists have signed on to a commentary that says all the evidence to date indicates that the coronavirus pandemic started naturally, and it wasn't the result of some kind of lab accident or malicious attack. They worry that continued speculation about a lab in China is fueling calls for more regulation of experiments with pathogens, and that this will stifle the basic research needed to prepare for future pandemics. The virologists issued their...

MANILA, Philippines — The House Makabayan bloc has expressed concerns over the reported construction of an animal disease diagnostic laboratory in Tarlac City with funding from the United States’ Defense Threat Reduction Agency (US-DTRA)... The lawmakers warned that the US-DRTA is the official combat support agency of the US for countering weapons of mass destruction: chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and high explosives. “A civilian laboratory was constructed using funds of a foreign military agency, which has the responsibility of managing and integrating the US defense department’s chemical and biological defense science and technology programs,” the measure reads.

The wife of the pastor where my family attends church just had a stroke. She is in her 50s. The stroke is small and we are praying she has a full recovery. Members of her family has had many health problems over the last five years so they will appreciate prayers.

After 20 years of research, Jyoti Thottam shares the immersive and unlikely story of a group of nuns from Kentucky who opened a hospital in India in 1947. ...When her mother was 15, she left her home at the southern tip of India and traveled more than 1,000 miles to Mokama, a small town in an area considered to be the poorest and most violent in the country. There, she spent seven years studying nursing at a hospital run by a handful of Catholic nuns from Kentucky

The Philippines on Saturday recorded 291 new COVID-19 cases to bring the country’s caseload to 2,837,555, the Department of Health (DOH) reported.The DOH said that of the 291 new reported cases, 260 or 89 percent were recorded in the recent 14 days (December 5-18).

My daughter in law's father is dying of a stroke. He is in ICU so they only allow one visitor with him. Please keep family in your prayers.

follow the money The CIA destablized the Ukraine helped by an American businessman who funded propaganda of the so called opposition. The result was to replace a pro russian president with an antirussian president who was corrupt. Both Oliver Stone and other left wing sites discuss this, and of course, Alex Jones has had several programs about the back story of Hunter Biden's scandal So a couple years later, that same American businessman funded a reporter from CNN to start an anti Duterte news site. Full story here by a writer who used to work at Rappler (2015 story) https://www.techinasia.com/rappler-funding-omidyar-network#!...

Abu Dhabi (AsiaNews) - United Arab Emirates (Eau) and Bahrain have decided to make the Pfizer / BioNTech m-RNA vaccine available to strengthen the population immunization campaign, initially based on the Chinese product Sinopharm. The unsatisfactory results that emerged following the use of the vaccine made in Beijing, with an increase in cases despite the presence of a substantial portion of people who received both doses, prompted the authorities to focus on a product that has shown - so far - greater effectiveness. Doubts about the true level of protection prompted Abu Dhabi and Manama to provide a third dose...

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri on Saturday urged the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF) to rethink its plans to avail of vaccines with low efficacy rate, calling this proposition as “unacceptable.”... Zubiri did not mention a specific brand, but he made the remark after the IATF announced that it preferred vaccines made by Chinese pharmaceuticals Sinovac, Sinopharm, and CanSino because of their “affordability and production capability.”... But Brazil, the first country to complete a late-stage trial of the Sinovac vaccine, said on Dec. 23 that the vaccine, called CoronaVac, was only more...

Keep the Philppines in your prayers. Manila got flooded badly, but the eye of the typhoon went north of Manila and hit this area badly. Luckily few lives were lost but lots of homes lost roofs and flooding destroyed their homes. Also damage to the rice crop.

Amazon Studios’ LOTR Series Heads Into Uncharted Carnal Waters with Casting Call for Nudity and an “Intimacy Coordinator” This might be a singularly surprising or even upsetting concept to present to Tolkien fans. If I were to address this reality to Star Wars, or Harry Potter, or even Miyazaki fandom it would raise eyebrows or outright alarm. But gather ’round the campfire and hear my tremulous words:“Prepare for a newly-sexualized version of your favorite fantasy world.”... Fact check: We can confirm Amazon Studios has hired Jennifer Ward-Lealand, a well-known New Zealand Intimacy Coordinator, for the Lord of the Rings production......

Florida may be the epicenter of COVID-19 with the number of confirmed cases skyrocketing over 500,000, but over 80% of states are seeing increased cases. While many of the young and able-bodied chafe at wearing masks and forgoing the beach, people with disabilities are concerned about having an equal shot in surviving the pandemic. We who live in the community are appalled by the carnage in nursing homes. “They’re death pits,” Betsy McCaughey, a former lieutenant governor of New York who founded the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths, has stated. “They’re crowded and they’re understaffed.” Roughly half of all virus...

MANILA, Philippines — Some coronavirus disease (COVID-19) testing kits donated by China were not used because of the lack of its accuracy, the Department of Health (DOH) said. DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario Vergeire said the testing kits only showed 40 percent accuracy compared to the testing kits from the World Health Organization (WHO)...

MONDAY, Feb. 12, 2018 (HealthDay News) -- As a particularly nasty flu season rages across the United States, scientists have found a powerful new disinfectant that makes "light" work of the virus. Researchers say a certain spectrum of ultraviolet light -- called far-UVC -- easily kills airborne flu viruses while posing no risk to people. It could offer a new, inexpensive way to eliminate airborne flu viruses in indoor public spaces such as hospitals, doctors' offices, schools, airports and aircraft, said the team from Columbia University Medical Center in New York City. The disinfecting success of initial experiments still need...

Could I request prayers for my daughter in law who has just been diagnosed with early stage uterine cancer? Thanks.

I just traveled through Shanghai airport, and found I couldn't reach a lot of American news sites and blogs while there on layover. But Free Republic (and my RSS feed) were not blocked there. So apparently the "great Firewall of China" doesn't block FR. Yet.

The war on drugs continues to enjoy popular support in the Philippines despite condemnation from many outside the country. Recent opinion surveys show 85 percent of Filipinos approve of the violent crackdown on illegal drugs but at the same time 78 percent are fearful they, or someone they know, may become a victim of the increased violence. Despite that 89 percent of people have noted a decline in crime since the anti-drug campaign began and find that overall they are safer.