Free Republic

The Barents Observer has for years studied satellite images of the Northern Fleet’s bases along the coast to the Barents Sea. Here are a few examples of what has happened in the course of the last eight years. But first, let’s jump back in the timeline: KREMLIN, MAY 7, 2012: The doors open and version 3.0 of Vladimir Putin enters St. Andrew’s Hall in the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow to be sworn in as president in a ceremony so overwhelming that thoughts went back to czarist Russia. Putin himself, though, had a clear plan for the start of his...

Officers found 67 guns and numerous magazines in four bags in the truck, according to the complaint. One was loaded with live ammunitionWhen a Minnesota State Trooper stopped a pickup truck for speeding on a U.S. highway this week, he not only discovered an arsenal of 67 suspected crime guns inside but two Toronto fugitives — one wanted for murder and the other for the kidnapping of a wealthy Chinese student. Dayne Adrian Sitladeen, 29, and Muzamil Aden Addow, 29, are both wanted for high-profile crimes in Ontario. With lockdown restrictions tightening, these indoor activities could make your day Sitladeen...

The nations quickest to enact social distancing and contact-tracing systems have mostly kept COVID-19 in check, but their citizens now find themselves lagging in receiving the shots needed to finally end a pandemic that has devastated millions of lives. Governments from Japan and Australia to Hong Kong and South Korea are taking their time before granting regulatory approvals for vaccines, in stark contrast to the Western nations that have rushed to inoculate populations. That cautious approach may seem strange given the urgency to resume normal life, but low infection rates mean that Asian governments are able to wait to see...

China’s recent COVID-19 outbreaks in the northeast have come from travelers entering the country or contaminated frozen food imports, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Saturday. “Since Dec. 2020, epidemic clusters have occurred in Beijing, Sichuan, Liaoning, Hebei and Heilongjiang,” a statement posted on the NHC’s website said citing the briefing by Ma. “They mainly have the following characteristics. Firstly, they are all imported from abroad, caused by travelers from overseas, or contaminated cold-chain imported items.” Total case numbers remain well below what China saw at the height of the outbreak in early 2020, but concerns about a new...

Nearly a year to the day that ZeroHedge raised suspicions over the origins of the COVID-19 outbreak - and were called 'conspiracy theorists' for it - the US State Department just revealed that they have new information suggesting it could have emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).In a Friday statement, the state department announced that while they haven't determined whether the COVID-19 pandemic "began through contact with infected animals or was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan, China," the US government "has reason to believe that several researchers inside the WIV became sick in...

Amid increasing calls for suspension of the use of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines produced by companies such as Pfizer, especially among elderly people, the situation in Norway has escalated significantly as the Scandi nation has now registered a total of 29 deaths among people over the age of 75 who’ve had their first COVID-19 vaccination shot.As Bloomberg reports, this adds six to the number of known fatalities in Norway, and also lowers the age group thought to be affected from 80.Until Friday, Pfizer/BioNTech was the only vaccine available in Norway, and “all deaths are thus linked to this vaccine,” the Norwegian...

Hundreds of Central Americans — many with families in tow — have begun the journey to the U.S. border hoping the new president will allow them to claim refugee status and enter the United States.They will likely be stopped in Mexico thanks to coronavirus restrictions, but the incoming Biden administration is worried that this is only the beginning. Joe Biden’s campaign rhetoric promised a “more humane” immigration policy and expanded the number of those able to claim refugee status. This will inevitably lead to a massive influx of those seeking asylum at the border.Reuters:On Thursday, Guatemala cited the pandemic in...

Twitter has come under fire recently for refusing to ban the Chinese government for lying about not employing forced labor in the Xinjiang province.“‘Forced labor’ is the biggest lie of the century aimed to restrict and suppress the relevant Chinese authorities and companies and contain China’s development,” Chinese spokesperson Hua Chunying tweeted.Accompanying the tweet was a video of forced laborers smiling and saying how good everything is at the factory. Nauseating."Forced labor" is the biggest lie of the century aimed to restrict and suppress the relevant Chinese authorities and companies and contain China's development.🔗https://t.co/olKiB2NxwM pic.twitter.com/SxzzxkrOja— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) January...

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has scored a decisive election victory to win a sixth term, the country’s election commission said on Saturday, but his main rival Bobi Wine denounced the results as fraudulent and urged citizens to reject them. The 76-year-old Museveni, in power since 1986 and one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, dismissed the allegations of fraud in an evening address to the nation, saying Thursday’s election may turn out to be the “most cheating free” in Uganda’s history. The Electoral Commission said final counts showed Museveni won 5.85 million votes, or 58.6%, while Wine had 3.48 million votes (34.8%)....

Baron Benjamin de Rothschild, president of the family holding Edmond de Rothschild Holding SA which oversees the Franco-Swiss financial group Edmond de Rothschild Group, died on Friday at the age of 57, his family told AFP on Saturday. “Ariane de Rothschild and her daughters are extremely sad to announce the death of their husband and father, Benjamin de Rothschild following a heart attack at the family home of Pregny (GE) in the afternoon of January 15, 2021, ”the family said in a statement. The Franco-Swiss group, headquartered in Geneva, specializes in private banking and asset management and has no connection...

Fact Sheet For more than a year, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has systematically prevented a transparent and thorough investigation of the COVID-19 pandemic’s origin, choosing instead to devote enormous resources to deceit and disinformation. Nearly two million people have died. Their families deserve to know the truth. Only through transparency can we learn what caused this pandemic and how to prevent the next one. The U.S. government does not know exactly where, when, or how the COVID-19 virus—known as SARS-CoV-2—was transmitted initially to humans. We have not determined whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or was...

Interestingly this was published on Movements.org website in 2011. It was part of Hillary’s State Department training given in Mexico City. This conference sponsored by Hillary’s State Department and Google. Training was provided to youth activists in the use of social media. Special classes were held in the use of software designed to evade government surveillance. This software is called TOR, funded thru Google, US Naval Research lab and George Soros’s Human Rights Watch. This is the same software WikiLeaks uses and is illegal in the United States per the Patriot act. This was archived since it has been scrubbed...

China on Saturday finished building a 1,500-room hospital for COVID-19 patients to fight a surge in infections the government said are harder to contain and that it blamed on infected people or goods from abroad. The hospital is one of six with a total of 6,500 rooms being built in Nangong, south of Beijing in Hebei province, the official Xinhua News Agency said. China had largely contained the coronavirus that first was detected in the central city of Wuhan in late 2019 but has suffered a surge of cases since December.

El Florido (Guatemala) - At least 4,500 Honduran migrants pushed past police and crossed into Guatemala Friday night, passing the first hurdle of a journey north they hope will take them to a better life in the United States. Seeking to escape poverty, unemployment, gang and drug violence and the aftermath of two devastating hurricanes, the migrants plan to walk thousands of kilometers through Central America to Mexico and then on to the US. The crowd of men, women and children -- many wearing masks due to the Covid-19 pandemic -- pushed their way past police and border gates diving...

Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar.A new documentary about Pablo Escobar will focus on the Scottish mercenary hired to kill the world’s most notorious drug baron. Ex-SAS operative Peter McAleese was recruited by a rival Colombian cartel to take out Escobar in 1989. Now a documentary will tell the story in McAleese’s own words and will show never-seen-before footage of his mission – which was ultimately unsuccessful. Killing Escobar, produced by Glasgow-based Two Rivers Media and Salon Pictures, will also reveal how McAleese’s violent upbringing in Glasgow, SAS training and experience as a...

Hundreds of tourist-trade businesses DEFY Covid lockdown rules and say they will reopen in Poland because lockdown they 'won't survive another month'Ski slopes, restaurants and hotels in Poland's mountainous south to defy rulesHundreds joined the 'Highlanders' Veto' movement's disobedience campaign Poland's government extended most of the coronavirus lockdown rules MondaySki slopes, restaurants and hotels in Poland's tourist-reliant mountainous south have announced they will defy anti-virus restrictions and reopen Monday, as small business owners nationwide grow increasingly weary of lockdown. Around 200 entrepreneurs have joined the so-called 'Highlanders' Veto' movement, whose leader Sebastian Piton announced the disobedience campaign while clad in...

Health Secretary Alex Azar on Thursday reminded Americans of how Beijing, about a year ago, had held back the truth about the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus outbreak, allowing it to turn into a global crisis.Azar, during a speech at conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, said the early U.S. response to the CCP virus was particularly difficult because the virus emerged in China, which, given the nature of the communist regime, “severely limited” outside access to information about it.“Let’s consider when and how the United States became aware of the virus,” the nation’s health chief said. “We learned about an...

What we’re witnessing is the dangerous normalization of a dystopian concept of “freedom” in which government dominates your life “for your own good.”When the Australian state of Victoria issued a 48-hour warning on New Year’s Eve that its border with the neighboring state of New South Wales would be indefinitely closed, it likely secured the award for the most egregious measure by a western government to curb COVID-19. The state government instructed residents to return home by 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 1. Those who did not arrive at the border by the midnight curfew were turned away by police. Thousands...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It released its latest Border Wall Status report on Jan. 8. According to CBP, the U.S. has 771 miles of barriers along the southwest border. Under the Trump Administration and since January 2017, a total of 453 miles have been worked on... 373 miles worth of construction has been completed in place of dilapidated and or outdated designs. 80 miles worth of border wall construction happened in locations where no barriers previously existed.

LONDON - France’s Total on Friday became the first major energy company to quit the largest U.S. oil and gas lobby because of differences over climate policies. Total said in a statement it would not renew its 2021 membership with the American Petroleum Institute (API) following a review of the lobby’s climate positions, describing them as being only “partially aligned” with Total’s. The points of difference include API’s support for the rollback of U.S. regulation on emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas and how to assign a price to carbon, vital to any carbon trading system seen as critical...